









































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Class / 



Copyright N?_ 

COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 






















V 














































Her Daughter Jean 


BOOKS BY 

MARION AMES TAGGART 


THE SIX GIRLS SERIES 


SIX GIRLS AND BOB. A Story of Patty Pans 
and Green Fields. 330 pages. 

SIX GIRLS AND THE TEA ROOM. A Story. 
316 pages. 

SIX GIRLS GROWING OLDER. A Story. 
331 pages. 

SIX GIRLS AND THE SEVENTH ONE. A 
Story. 358 pages. 

BETTY GASTON, THE SEVENTH GIRL. 
A Story. 352 pages. 

SIX GIRLS AND BETTY. A Story. 320 pages. 
SIX GIRLS GROWN UP. A Story. 343 pages. 
Price, $1.50 each 

HER DAUGHTER JEAN. A Story. 336 pages. 
$1.20 net. 

These volumes are attractively illustrated and 
bound uniformly. 

















S'. -• ^.SHrS < 

S:v . . ; ..*<<.> w** v9B&*-^ 




51 a • ■ 

SI , 

K* - 1 . -yJII 


f , it 4 > •■ J 


v, i. JvjmgjSf.■ <•’■•■ 

. '.-jAttfir':^*^ '%mp *'« 






y v 


i fiip,-" i fete, 




i '.■ i A .. ■•'■'p.\ / 


3® < •■' 

if- 3 

[ •■ §W 



rf i 

fV* v ■-•■tffljkj; ’ ■ «x? : 

W* Vv . 


[ ■ if 

w**" v* 9H^H|s 


S^Ky/:;-: ■ 













Her Daughter Jean 


A STORY 

BY 

MARION AMES TAGGART 

n 

ILLUSTRATED BY 
WILLIAM F. STECHER 



W. A. WILDE COMPANY 


BOSTON 


CHICAGO 




Tm 

\U 


Copyrighted, Iplj, 

By W. A. Wilde Company 
All rights reserved 

Her Daughter Jean 




©CI.A 358747 


This book ia lovingly dedicated 
to 

CONSTANCE’S DAUGHTER JEAN 

Whose life began on the day 
finis was written to 

“Her Daughter Jean’* 


April 4th, 1913 




















CONTENTS 


I. 

Jean’s Dreaming . 




11 

H. 

Jean’s Awakening 




26 

in. 

Jean in the Fog . 




43 

IY. 

Jean, the Housekeeper 




68 

Y. 

Jean’s Opportunity 




76 

YL 

Jean’s Misgivings . 




91 

YII. 

Jean’s Present 




108 

YIII. 

Jean’s Holiday 




124 

IX. 

Jean Makes Another Xew Acquaint- 



ance 




141 

X. 

Jean’s Vortex 




158 

XI. 

Jean’s Fears Take Form 




173 

XII. 

Jean’s Plot . 




188 

XIII. 

Jean, the Conspirator . 




206 

XIY. 

Jean’s Call to Arms 




220 

XY. 

Jean’s Bold Plunge 




236 

XYI. 

Jean’s Courage 




251 

XVII. 

Jean’s Triumph 




269 

XVIII. 

Jean Faces Sorrow 




284 

XIX. 

Jean’s Reward 




299 

XX. 

Jean’s Freighted Ships 




317 






ILLUSTRATIONS 


Jean stood smiling, waving her hand Frontispiece 
Helen nodded toward the window . 

She cut through the water with her sail close 

HAULED •••••••« 

No one came near the three women 


PAGE 

47 {/ 
15 


186 











* 


































Her Daughter Jean 


CHAPTER I 
jean’s dreaming 

“TT is perfectly beautiful!” cried Helen Lumley. 

A She looked at Jean Wolcott with awe, seeing her 
as the author of a poem, not as her sixteen-year-old 
friend. Helen was one of those persons who regard 
poetry as something so thoroughly to be respected that 
it ought not to be read—or need not be! Surely it 
was never to be read for pleasure. And as to making 
it—well! 

“ I don’t see how you can make up poetry,” Helen 
continued. 

Jean flushed with annoyance. It exasperated her to 
have Helen make one of these dull, kindly remarks, 
which she invariably did when Jean read one of her 
poems to her, a remark that betrayed admiration for 
the miracle of poetry writing, rather than for the 
poem. She folded the paper with a quick movement, 
and fell back among her pillows. 

11 


12 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ It isn’t strange if that is what a person is born to 
do. A singer sings, a painter paints, a poet writes 
poetry. Each one has a language in which to ex¬ 
press his soul,” explained Jean, somewhat importantly. 
Then, inconsistently, further to call out Helen’s admi¬ 
ration, though it had annoyed her, Jean added: “I’ve 
just had a poem accepted by Guernsey's Magazine .” 

“ Oh, truly! ” cried Helen. “ Did they pay for it ? 
What did they say about it ? ” 

44 Oh, Helen! ” protested Jean. 44 Yes, they paid for 
it, ten dollars, which they said was a little more than 
their usual rate of twenty-five cents a line. Isn’t it 
awful to think that poetry is sold by measurement, like 
unbleached cloth! ” 

Helen laughed. 44 Unbleached cloth is always in 
demand,” she observed, leaving the application of her 
remark to the poet. 14 But isn’t it glorious, Jean! 
You are actually launched on your career, at sixteen! ” 
44 As to that, I was launched long ago. You know 
I’ve had lots of poems published in papers, only they 
weren’t the ones that pay. I suppose the money does 
put a kind of seal on its being good, but it is rather 
horrid. They were darling verses, though I suppose I 
couldn’t say so to any one that didn’t love me well 
enough to let me say what I think. They were child 
verses, the kind everybody is trying to write now, em- 


JEAN’S DREAMING 


13 


bodying a child’s thoughts in that sweet, little simple 
way that a grown person uses when he is writing about 
a child. I don’t remember what Rod and Steve were 
like when they were little, but I can tell you Dorcas Wol¬ 
cott isn’t that sort of child one bit! There’s nothing 
poetic or dreamy about Dorcas when she looks at 
racing waves, like the child I wrote about! ” 

“ Dorcas would race the racing waves, not waste time 
imagining things about them,” commented Helen. 

Jean nodded, her smile fading into a look of melan¬ 
choly. “ Oh, Helen,” she cried, “ if only I were well, 
think what glorious things I could accomplish! Isn’t 
it hard to be given a precious gift and then be denied 
the use of it ? ” 

“ It’s dreadful, Jeannie,” said Helen sympathetically. 
“ And here am I as strong as can be and not a gift to 
be found in me with a search-light! ” 

“ Oh, as to that, Nell, you are considered the most 
competent girl of our age in all the Tidewaters, North, 
East, or West, with the Centre thrown in! And when 
Tidewater calls a girl ‘ competent ’ it means more than 
when it calls her a Sappho,” laughed Jean. “ I imagine 
the Lumley family enjoy your gifts more than the Wol¬ 
cotts do mine—though my blessed mother is so proud 
of me I am quite ashamed.” 

“ We are all proud of you, Jean, and we all wish you 


14 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


were strong,” said Helen gently. She hesitated, look¬ 
ing at her friend so earnestly that Jean said: 

“What is back of that wish, Helen? You look 
volumes you aren’t publishing.” 

“ I don’t dare! ” said Helen. “ But, after all—you 
won’t misunderstand ? You won’t think that I’m not so 
sorry for your being half an invalid that I don’t know 
what to do, will you. Jean dear ? You know if I had 
heard of anything that would make you better I ought 
to tell you ? Then,” she went on, flushed, but brave, 
as Jean nodded, “ there are people in Tidewater who 
love you dearly and who think—maybe—you would be 
strong, or far stronger—if you spent part of your day 
in—well, in active work. If you did not write and 
dream all the time. Now, Jean, please don’t be angry ! 
You know I don’t say they’re right! And they are 
just as loving to you as they can be who say it.” 

“ Do you suppose my Step-grand, Claudia Wolcott, 
ever loses a chance to impress upon mother and me 
how wrong we both are, I to lie here nearly all the 
time, and she to let me ? ” demanded Jean angrily. 
a Why, Helen, what do you suppose Tidewater people 
know about a poet ? Poets often are frail, just as I 
am ; it’s the penalty of their temperament. Do you 
suppose I don’t want to be strong and run about and 
enjoy my youth with the other girls ? ”* 



Hei.en Nodded Towakds the Window 










JEAN’S DREAMING 


15 


“ To tell the truth, Jean, I don’t think you care much 
about that,” said Helen with a little laugh. “ I’m the 
only girl you really like—you dear thing !—though I 
don’t see why, for I’m not as clever as lots of the other 
Tidewater girls. I don’t think you care much to go 
about with the girls, but I do think you must long to 
be free and strong, to go hours and hours each day into 
all that! ” Helen nodded toward the window. 

It was a casement window that opened outward. It 
was curtained in soft white muslin that fluttered in the 
breeze of this warm day of early May. Through it 
the girls saw the ocean, blue and still, stretching off to 
meet a sky as blue, but brighter. The heat wavered 
between their eyes and the water, and the sunshine 
made the nearer surface of the sea dance, while a line 
of white occasionally marked a wave that broke far off 
from shore. Jean’s chamber window did not show 
them the white beach below the dune, but the girls saw 
the lighthouse straight out in a line from the window, 
and they knew that the white mist rising at its foot 
into the sunshine was the foam of the breakers on the 
rocks which the lighthouse crowned. It was all so 
beautiful that for a moment Jean did not answer, and 
when she did it was not directly to the point of Helen’s 
last remark. 

“ It isn’t strange that I write poetry, lying here 


16 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


looking at that day after day, in storm and sunshine. 
And the sea wind beats against this casement and 
drives the spray into my room in northeasters. And 
at the full of the moon she rises just to the right of the 
light, straight up out of that ocean, all for me, Helen, 
all for me who cannot go out into the beauty, like you 
girls, but who loves it as no one else can,” murmured 
Jean, with the lost look in her eyes that told Helen 
that one of her uplifted moods was upon her and that 
further suggestions of a practical nature would be 
wasted. 

“ Do you think that you are going to be here just as 
you are now, all your days ? Not ill—you never are 
really ill, Jean !—but just delicate and lying here nearly 
all the time ? ” Helen asked after a pause. “ There isn’t 
anything the matter with you, except that you aren’t 
strong. When do you suppose you will get strong ? 
Ever, Jean ? ” 

Jean flushed and turned her dreamy eyes from the 
sea to her friend. “ Helen, the reason I like you as I 
never could like any other girl in Tidewater is that I 
can say anything to you and you will surely under¬ 
stand, although you are so practical, so different from 
me,” she said. “ What I’m going to tell you would 
sound silly unless you did understand, but I know you 
will. I feel in myself a great strength that seems to be 


JEAN’S DREAMING 


17 


’way down below in my soul. I feel as if I could do 
almost anything, bear almost anything. I think I 
could do wonders if a sort of miracle were wrought in 
me. As it is I tire so easily that I can hardly bear 
anything. But I think some day the miracle will hap¬ 
pen. I think love will work it, just as it did for Mrs. 
Browning. Of course it is a long way off, but we are 
sixteen, and that is quite old enough to think of what 
is coming some day. Mrs. Browning was a poet. I 
believe that, just like her, I could get up off a bed of 
suffering, cured, and work and bear and suffer for any 
one I loved.” 

Helen looked at Jean’s kindling eyes and felt no 
temptation to smile. Jean was beautiful at times. Just 
now she looked like a Jeanne d’Arc, enkindled, her 
gray eyes dilated, her pale cheeks flushed, her sensitive 
mouth set firm and sweet as it smiled a welcome to fu¬ 
ture trials and heroisms to be gone through by the girl 
for a great love. 

“ Oh, Jean, dear Jean, you may be right. I guess 
we others can’t judge for you. But I know if either 
love or duty called you, you would be strong to do 
what came to you to be done,” said Helen, rising to go. 

Jean arose with her. She was taller by half a head 
than Helen, tall and slender, whereas the other girl was 
short and compact. Jean wound her arm around Helen 


18 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


and went with her into the hall. From below came up 
the sound of voices. Mrs. Wolcott, standing within the 
parlor door, was also saying last words to a friend who 
was taking leave. 

The girls had no interest in what was going on be¬ 
low, but the voice of the departing caller smote their 
ears and they were instantly aroused to an interest in 
what she was saying, as absorbing as it was unforeseen, 
and which swept them beyond consciousness of being 
listeners. 

“Well, there’s no use in talking to you, Mary ! Jean 
has always been the apple of your eye and you’ll spare 
her just as long as you can, whatever any one says. 
But I tell you it’s a crime, a crime to yourself, to the 
other children, to Jean, not to tell her.” The woman’s 
voice mounted higher in her earnestness. 

u Oh, hush ! Don’t speak so loud; she and Helen 
might hear,” cried Mrs. Wolcott in distress. “ How 
can I tell J ean ? The child is so frail that I’m always 
worried about her, and if I went away all the burden 
of this household would fall on her unaccustomed 
shoulders. You know what Bentley is—absolutely lost 
to the world in his dreams and his patents up there in 
the tower room. Jean would have more than she could 
endure; it would kill her. I must risk staying here. 
The doctor may be wrong, but if not—better I than she! ” 


JEAN’S DREAMING 


19 


“ Mary Wolcott, yon are enough to try the patience 
of all the angels in heaven ! ” the visitor burst out with 
vehement impatience. “ Hasn’t the doctor—not only 
our doctor, but the specialist in Boston—haven’t they 
both said that if you went away in time you would cer¬ 
tainly be cured ? And haven’t they agreed that you 
must die, absolutely must die if you stayed here beside 
the sea, simply cultivating your tendency in this strong, 
rough, damp air ? Now answer me ! ” 

“ Oh, Rhoda, don’t, I beg of you! ” implored Mrs. 
Wolcott’s soft, distressed voice, and Jean, clutching 
Helen in wide-eyed terror, noticed for the first con¬ 
scious time that a cough interrupted its sweetness. 

“ Why do you distress me like this ? You know I 
have been told all that, but you know, too, that I can¬ 
not go away to that mountain sanitorium, leaving my 
poor little Jean to struggle on alone. We cannot 
afford a servant. You know all about our affairs, 
Rhoda, and why I cannot save myself at the cost of 
poor little Jean. I must bear what comes.” 

“ Mary,” said Mrs. Wolcott’s cousin more gently, 
“ you are unjust to Jean. Isn’t it better she should 
struggle now than to lose you ? Do you think the girl 
would hesitate if you gave her her choice? We all 
think that Jean would be perfectly well if she had an 
absorbing interest, some active employment; she needs 


20 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


arousing. But whether or not we are right as to that, 
unless you think Jean heartless, you are preparing her 
a heartbreak by insisting on staying here and dying to 
spare her temporary hardship. Your kindness is cru¬ 
elty. When Jean finds out, too late—and she is sure 
to find it out—that you stayed here to spare her, 
you will have left her a legacy of grief sharper than 
the mere loss of her mother, the grief of having been 
blind when sight might have given you life. If you 
don’t tell her I will. And don’t the boys and that 
madcap Dorcas need you ? Is Jean the only one to 
consider ? And that Bentley Wolcott of yours, who is 
about as fit to live without you as a suspension bridge 
is to hang without its towers! ” 

Mrs. Wolcott and her cousin moved toward the 
door, Mrs. Wolcott imploring her cousin not to speak to 
Jean, at least until she had time to reconsider telling 
her the truth herself. The two girls shrank back out 
of sight. Then Jean pulled Helen into her own room 
again, shut the door and sat down upon the foot of her 
couch, staring, speechless, at Helen with frightened, 
dilated eyes. 

“ Maybe it isn’t so,” murmured Helen. 

“ Of course it’s so,” said Jean slowly, in a voice 
so hard and unlike her own that Helen was more 
frightened than before. “ Mother has been ailing for a 


JEAN’S DREAMING 


21 


long, long time. Everybody speaks of her as not 
strong; people ask me about her pityingly, I do be¬ 
lieve, though I never thought of it before. I thought 
she was tired out, but I’ve been taking it for granted 
that mother was naturally always tired, just as I took 
everything else about her for granted. It never oc¬ 
curred to me to help her,” Jean went on, monotonously, 
self-accusingly. “ She went up to Boston two weeks 
ago. I have thought she seemed troubled since then, 
but I thought it far off in the back of my dreaming, 
worthless brain ; it didn’t strike me as anything real, 
that I ought to feel instead of see. Mother is often 
troubled ; I suppose I am used to that, too, and thought 
it was enough for me to live ; that ought to be comfort 
enough for her ! I—I—wrote poetry ! Mother has 
always been anxious. You know that father is so 

far-off, so impractical, that mother has to do it all- 

Oh, my mother! My dear, brave, uncomplaining 
mother! ” 

Jean’s dull, wretched voice, charged only with self- 
contempt, broke, and she shook with sobs that brought 
no tears. Helen essayed to put her arms about her, but 
Jean thrust them away. 

“ She has been father and mother both,” Jean went 
on, forcing back the sobs. “ She has borne everything 
that there was to bear, and I, I have lived sixteen 


22 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


years and have never taken my share ! I see it all at 
once; it kills me to see! ” She clutched her throat 
with a gasp that strangled her. “ Helen, do you sup¬ 
pose that God will count it as a tiny excuse that I never 
once, not once was awake before ? I wrote my miser¬ 
able verses, and dreamed, and took for granted my life 
in this house just as it had always been, just as I had 
lived when I was six instead of sixteen, no earthly use ! 
Dorcas is a trial and she is only ten, but I believe she 
helps mother more than I do ! And now—you heard ! 
Mother is ill, mother will die, die, die, Helen, unless she 
goes away ! Oh, I can’t bear it! ” Jean pressed her 
hands over her dry, burning eyes, then suddenly threw 
them out as if she would fling away the worthless 
hands, and the threatened sorrow with them. The 
color swept to her hair and her eyes glowed with the 
fire of a great resolution as she sprang to her feet, look¬ 
ing taller than ever, drawing herself to her full height. 

“ I don’t have to bear it! ” she cried. “ If she goes 
away she will not die! She shall go—Monday! I 
will drive her away. Oh, Cousin Rhoda was right! 
How could mother be so cruel as to risk letting such a 
sorrow fall on us ? My mother—dead ! But she is 
going away, Helen, and I shall take her place. You 
will teach me how. You said you had no gifts, but I 
don’t know how to cook; I’m not fit to be left alone in 


JEAN’S DREAMING 


23 


my own home! Oh, what a worthless, worthless girl! 
And we thought I was wonderful. Poetry! Poetry , 
Helen, when my mother was breaking down and I let 
her ! But it isn’t too late. Oh, thank heaven, it isn’t 
too late ! She said if she went away it would save her. 
Didn’t she, Helen ? You heard that, and Cousin Rhoda 
said so, too.” 

“ Yes, yes. Don’t, Jean, dear, don’t get so excited ! 
You must be quiet and steady, or you can’t do what is 
to be done. Just be glad that you found out in time 
and then go quietly about saving your mother—and 
then we know that you will save her,” said Helen, 
gathering Jean like a baby into her arms, which Jean 
no longer resisted. 

“ You dear, sensible, anchor Helen ! ” sobbed Jean, 
now crying tempestuously, but relievingly, steadying 
herself on the sturdy young shoulder that lovingly of¬ 
fered itself to her quivering body. “ I will be good. 
You must let me cry a while. I don’t often go to 
pieces, but it was such a shock, such a shock, Helen! ” 

“ I know, I do know! I’m shocked, too. There, 
there, dear ! Don’t cry so hard ; it will use you up so 
dreadfully. You must keep yourself well, Jeannie. I 
hope you are going to be able to carry it through,” 
murmured Helen anxiously as she patted Jean’s burn¬ 
ing cheek. 


24 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Jean straightened herself with one of her sudden 
changes and a luminous smile that was more wonderful 
than a poem, had she but known it. 

“ Why, I said some day love would come and cure 
me and make me equal to what was required of me ! ” 
she cried. “ I didn’t mean this sort of love ; I meant 
romance. All girls mean that when they talk of love. 
But this love is just as strong, stronger—isn’t it ? I 
think I love my mother well enough to live—or to die 
—for her ! It has come, this very hour, Helen ! The 
thing that love wants me to wake up to and do for it. 
Now you shall see that it’s going to make me per¬ 
fectly strong and well to work for love’s sake. It’s 
going to be a miracle worked by love. Dear¬ 
est, poor, poor little mother! Keeping it all to 
herself to spare her good-for-nothing oldest child! 
Helen, come with me. We’ve got to find her and tell 
her that I know, that I heard every word Cousin 
Rhoda said to her, and that her worthless Jean is 
going to try to be a woman. I’ll tell her that love 
shall cure us both, that I am cured already. Helen, 
I feel as if I were walking on that ocean with God’s 
hands under my arms, right up to victory. Don’t you 
see no one could fail that way ? Mother will be cured ; 
she shall not die. She’s coughing just to wake me ; it’s 
a trumpet cough ! Oh, Helen, if I hadn’t found out! 


JEAN’S DREAMING 


25 


Come, Nell, come! I am going out of this room of 
mine right into my own home and my place in it. If 
only it isn’t too late! ” 

Jean walked out of the door, head erect, her face 
aflame with such passionate self-reproach, love, cour¬ 
age, determination that she looked like a maiden of 
centuries ago, walking into the coliseum to face the 
lions, strong in a faith to conquer death. Helen fol¬ 
lowed her, white and frightened. Jean was very 
beautiful thus, but she seemed to the less highly wrought 
girl like something unearthly and rather alarming. 
Practical and devoted to her gifted Jean, Helen 
trembled at this swift rising from dreams and semi¬ 
invalidism. With all her warm heart she pitied Jean, 
and not less she feared for her. 


CHAPTER II 


jean’s awakening 


A T the sitting-room door Helen paused. “ I won’t 
go in with you, dear,” she said. “ I’ll go home 
now. Your mother must be in there.” 

Jean scarcely heard her, though she mechanically re¬ 
turned Helen’s kiss and hand pressure. Already, as she 
closed the door behind her friend, she was on the other 
side of the sitting-room door with her mother in her 
arms. 

When Jean entered Mrs. Wolcott looked up, throw¬ 
ing off with a conscious effort the expression of utter 
wretchedness that she had allowed her face to wear as 
she sat alone, looking at the situation without disguise. 
Instantly, with a mother’s loving hypocrisy, she assumed 
her usual cheerful smile. But when she saw Jean’s 
face she knew that it was no longer necessary to act a 
part. 

“Mother!” was all Jean said, but Mrs. Wolcott 
knew that Jean had found her out. 

She held out her arms and the girl ran into them, 
26 


JEAN’S AWAKENING 


27 


clutching her mother, who held her tight, with one great 
sob that tore itself out of her overcharged heart. That 
was the only expression of grief that escaped her. 
Instead, Jean began at once to talk. Her voice was 
high and strained, she trembled, but there were no tears, 
no weakness. 

“ Mother, Helen and I came out into the hall just as 
Cousin Rhoda was going ; we heard. How could you, 
mother dearest, dearest, cruelest, how could you! ” she 
said. 

Mrs. Wolcott did not speak, and Jean went on: 

“ Of course it doesn’t excuse me for not seeing, but it 
was frightful that you did not tell me. Suppose I hadn’t 
found out! I’m pretty poor material. I’m selfish, 
dreaming, indolent, anything, but I do love you ! If 
you’d told me I’d have ’roused, just as I’ve waked up 
now. And to think if I’d gone on so wickedly blind ! 
Oh, Cousin Rhoda was right! It would have killed me 
with remorse.” 

“ Jean, my darling, my dearest child, I won’t let you 
abuse yourself, nor feel thus toward yourself! ” cried 
Jean’s mother. “ It would not have been natural for 
you to see, and I hoped it might not be as bad as they 
said. You are always my sweet, loving child, not 
strong, lost in your dear little brain, but always my 
comfort, my pride. You must never reproach yourself, 


28 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


whatever happens. Remember, darling, you are all I 
could ask you to be.” 

Jean swept away her mother’s consolation with a 
gesture. “ It doesn’t matter what you say, mother, I 
know ! ” she said. “ I’m too old to live like a genius 
boarding in this house. I’m horrid, but it’s something 
to know it. Never mind about me ; I’ve got my own 
picture by a flashlight, through hearing you and Cousin 
Rhoda talking. Now, that’s settled. Here’s another 
thing that’s settled. You’re going away on Monday.” 

“Jean-” began Mrs. Wolcott, but Jean swept 

away her attempt to speak with another swift, 
imperious gesture, and went on herself. 

“ I know every single word you’ll say,” she cried. 
“ Every one. ‘ You can’t leave me ; ’ ‘ I’m not strong 
enough ’—you won’t say I don’t know enough, though 
that’s nearer true—‘to take care of the family.’ ‘ You 
can’t leave the boys,’ ‘you can’t leave Dorcas,’‘you 
can’t leave father,’ ‘ you must get some clothes ready,’ 
‘ you must see that some dozens of things are done to the 
house,’ ‘ you have got to cook up a lot to leave for us ’ 
—I know all about that! But you are going on Mon¬ 
day ! ” Jean’s voice, Jean’s eyes, Jean’s swift moving 
hands underscored her final statement. 

“ You have not thought of the cost, my dear,” said 
her mother with a faint smile. 


JEAN’S AWAKENING 


29 


“ Of course I have! Even a moonstruck thing like 
me knows it’s the thing we have to think of almost 
first,” retorted Jean. “ But it will not cost a cent less 
two weeks from now than on Monday. I know you’ve 
got money put away for a rainy day ; you always have 
provided for that rainy day. This is worse than rain ; 
it’s a blizzard ! Mother, don’t waste one moment hunt¬ 
ing up objections, for there isn’t one on earth big enough 
to stop your going. If we hadn’t the money I’d go to 
Step-grand and beg, or steal it—and I can’t say any¬ 
thing stronger than that I’d go to her for money ! And 
if you tried to stay here, risking your life, I’d get Dr. 
Blaisdell to chloroform you and take you away before 
you came to ! Mother, oh, mother, can’t you stop being 
unselfish in your way for a minute and try to think 
what it would cost us—me especially !——if you didn’t 
go ? Can’t you see that it drives me nearly mad even 
to think of what may happen if you wait to go ? How 
can you risk dying ? With four children ? And you 
the dearest, the greatest thing in the world to us ? 
Mother, don’t be afraid to leave me. I’ll blunder badly 
enough, but Helen will help me and Steve is a regular 
Plymouth Rock of a dependence-boy. All the neighbors 
will advise me and help me out, and after a week or so 
I’ll know lots. Don’t be afraid I’ll write poetry on the 
dishes, instead of washing them, or make up a story 


30 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


instead of the beds ! Don’t you see, can’t you feel that 
already I’m changed ? You are going Monday. I’m 
going to tell father in a minute. Come right up-stairs 
now, and we’ll see what you’ll have to take for clothes, 
and what you have to buy new. This is Wednesday— 
Thursday, Friday, Saturday—five days! That’s heaps 
and oceans of time. You can stop over in Boston and 
get whatever you need. Come up-stairs and we’ll get 
out everything you own. Come, my blessed mother! ” 

Jean’s arm around her mother’s drooping body pulled 
her to her feet; Jean triumphantly felt her mother’s 
mind and will yielding to hers, just as her body yielded 
to her arms. 

“ Oh, Jean! ” she protested feebly. 

Jean suddenly poured hot tears and kisses on her pale 
face, crying with all her might as she crushed her mother 
in an embrace that showed little weakness. 

“ Mother, mother, mother! Oh, my mother, mother, 
mother ! ” she sobbed. Then she sternly checked the 
outburst that had not mastered her until she knew that 
her cause was won. 

“ I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t be guilty of being so cruel 
to my eldest child as you are, my unselfish, dear, silent 
blessing, not for the mint! Not even if she were no 
kind of use, for I’d have known I’d have killed her if 
I’d have let myself die to spare her a little housework! ” 


JEAN’S AWAKENING 


31 


Jean gasped chokingly, trying to laugh as she saw that 
her tempest of tears had broken up her mother’s self- 
control. 

Up-stairs in her mother’s room, which looked on the 
sea just as Jean’s across the hall looked on it, Jean 
rapidly emptied cupboard and bureau drawers till the 
bed and all the chairs, except the one into which she 
had peremptorily pushed her mother, the big chintz- 
covered armchair by the window, were covered with 
clothing. These Jean rapidly assorted, holding up one 
article after another before her mother, deciding in 
most cases herself, with extreme speed, as if she feared 
that Monday would jump upon them out of due course 
and surprise them, unready. 

“ You won’t have to take so very, very much,” said 
Jean, speaking with difficulty as she held a dressing 
jacket lightly in her teeth, while she compared two 
others, held at arm’s length. “ For one thing you may 
get strong fast and come home soon, and for another 
you can send for what you need. This one is faded, 
motherkins; you must take these two.” She tossed two 
of the jackets on the pile that was to go and folded the 
third to return to the drawer. 

“ I don’t like your wrapper. You are to get a new 
one in Boston; two: one warm one and one thinner 
one. Now that’s about all; we’ve looked them all 


32 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


over. You see how easy it will be to get ready ? I’ve 
got a list here of what you must buy.” Jean glanced 
at a pad on which she had made swift notes of what 
she considered must be replaced in her mother’s simple 
wardrobe. “ This afternoon,” she continued, “ I’m go¬ 
ing to kidnap Miss Lizzie ; tell her wherever she’s sew¬ 
ing she must leave and come here to put in order your 
two dresses that have to be altered, because you are go¬ 
ing away Monday and they must be in the trunk Sat¬ 
urday night. I’ll order a trunk at the same time. No¬ 
body in this family has used one for so long that there 
isn’t one good enough to take away. Mercy, mother! 
Where are you going ? I never thought of that till 
this moment! ” 

Mrs. Wolcott laughed. “ The doctors wanted me to 
go to the Summit Sanitorium, on Mount Horsford. I 
suppose I am going there, since you have decided it.” 

“ That isn’t so dreadfully far away; it might have 
been Colorado,” said Jean, regarding her mother crit¬ 
ically. “ You look pale. This dress parade has tired 
you. I think I’ll beat up a raw egg for you.” 

“I couldn’t take it, dearie,” said Mrs. Wolcott. 

“ I’ve heard somewhere that if you beat one light, 
and add a half glass of cold water, instead of milk, 
they’re more delicate; I’m going to try it that way,” 
announced Jean, already on her way out of the room. 


JEAN’S AWAKENING 


33 


She surprised herself, no less than her mother, by pro¬ 
ducing this knowledge which had lain dormant in her 
brain till needed, and till her mother’s danger aroused 
the side of her mind wherein practical knowledge 
slumbered. 

Jean beat the egg into feathery lightness, added the 
sugar and water and carried it, with three thin biscuits 
to her mother, who, to her profound satisfaction, drank 
it with relish and ate the biscuits, as well. 

“ Thank you, daughter Jean,” she said, giving back 
the little tray to Jean. “ If I’m to have a poet and a 
nurse and a deft housekeeper, all combined in my one 
dear daughter, how do you suppose I shall ever live up 
to my blessings ? ” 

“ Just by living—up or down,” said Jean, going away 
quickly to hide the tears this praise called forth. 

Having deposited her burden in the big, old-fash¬ 
ioned kitchen Jean hastened away to find her father 
in “ the tower room,” as Mr. Wolcott’s workshop and 
special sanctum was called. The Wolcott house was 
an old one, dating back to Revolutionary days, when 
houses were built of hand-hewn timber, with rooms 
big enough to hold the massive furniture of those 
times. It had been “ the Wolcott house,” never pass¬ 
ing out of the family, since it was built. It stood on 
the brow of the cliff which ran along parallel with the 


34 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


sea through Tidewater. From the cliff dunes descended 
at this point of the town to the ocean. Below the 
house lay the glittering expanse of the Atlantic, break¬ 
ing, with happy songs to itself, or in towering 
rages on the rocks at the foot of the old house. In 
the center of the Wolcott house, a Wolcott of two 
generations before had built a tower which, though 
not proper to the original plan, was still not incon¬ 
gruous to the solid house with its square dimensions, 
straight lines and perfect proportions. In this tower 
Mr. Bentley Wolcott, the present owner of the house of 
his fathers, had established himself. Here he spent his 
days, innocently enough, but most ineffectually, invent¬ 
ing, improving, dreaming, reading, still seeing the 
visions of youth, still holding to youth’s vague belief 
in.something great that was to come of an inaction 
that never has produced results, nor ever can produce 
them, for genius itself does not exempt a man from the 
law that compels each one to labor for a prize. Jean’s 
father looked up and greeted her with a smile, absent- 
minded, but sweet and kindly. His eyes were blue, 
with much the look in them that babies wear when 
they are comfortably fed and are getting—not sleepy, 
but ready to be sleepy. Mr. Wolcott cleared a chair 
of its magazines with a gesture inviting the girl to be 
seated, but Jean shook her head. 


JEAN’S AWAKENING 


35 


“ I want to go back to catch Rod and Steve when 
they come in,” she said. “ Father, dear, did you know 
that mother was not well ? ” 

Her father looked alarmed, and half started to his 
feet. “ I thought yesterday—or was it the day be¬ 
fore ?—that your mother looked somewhat pale. Is 
she taken with pain? Do you think it is a cold, 
Jean ? ” he asked. 

“ Oh, father dear, no; I don’t mean that she is 
suddenly, not specially ill to-day,” said Jean. Her 
father sank back, instantly reassured. “It is worse 
than that,” Jean continued, trying not to lose patience 
as she saw that he was so ready for reassurance. “ She 
is dangerously broken down; the doctors think her 
lungs may be affected. She has seen a specialist in 
Boston who agrees with Dr. Blaisdell. They say 
that she will not get well unless she goes away from 
here.” 

“ My dear Jean, Tidewater is especially wholesome,” 
said Mr. Wolcott, looking distressed, yet with an effect 
of the distress being caused almost as much by this 
imputation on Tidewater as by Jean’s serious informa¬ 
tion. “ Your dear mother! I hardly think they can 
be right, however. What does she purpose doing, my 
dear ? ” 

“ She is going away on Monday,” said Jean. 


36 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ On Monday ? Not for long ? ” exclaimed Mr. 
Wolcott, looking really alarmed now. 

“Until she is well enough to come back,” said Jean. 
“ I am going to keep house for you. I don’t wonder 
you look frightened ! Oh, father, dear daddy,” Jean 
added piteously, abandoning her attempt at lightness, 
feeling keenly how slight a dependence in an emer¬ 
gency this sweet-natured dreamer would be, “ try to put 
up with me, and please help me! I shall not do par¬ 
ticularly well at first, but I’ll learn. We—we must 
pull together to hold mother fast, mustn’t we ? ” 

“ Surely, child, surely,” said Mr. Wolcott, rising to 
put an arm around Jean with much affectionate gentle¬ 
ness. “You must not worry. I am certain that the 
doctors exaggerate; doctors are often alarmists. I 
never noticed anything seriously wrong with your 
mother. She never was strong, in a sense, yet she has 
never been ill, never given up like other women. She 
has a great deal of nervous strength, resolution, ‘ grit,’ 
our New Englanders justly call it. Don’t worry, my 
dear. As to your keeping house, I am certain our 
clever Jean can do that perfectly well. I will help 
you. I shall get an idea I’m working on now off my 
mind in a few days, then I shall have more leisure. 
You have shocked me, but on second thought I see 
there is no ground for anxiety. Still Mary does right 


JEAN’S AWAKENING 


37 


to go away. A little rest of a week or so will do 
her worlds of good. She might go to pay a visit 
to my cousin Winifred Adams ; we have often spoken 
of it. I’ll go down and talk to your mother shortly. 
I’ll just work a little longer on a point that somewhat 
baffles me. I’ll be down shortly. I’m glad you came 
up to me with your trouble, little girl, but I assure you 
there isn’t the least reason for worrying. So don’t 
worry, my pretty Jean.” 

Mr. Wolcott dismissed Jean with several more reas¬ 
suring pats and a kiss on her pale cheek; plainly he 
regarded the case as good as cured by his quiet opti¬ 
mism. Jean went away with conflicting emotions. 
NTo one could help loving this gentle dreamer, yet 
people we love are sometimes trying. How little 
he realized the meaning of the statement that had 
chilled Jean’s heart at its first hearing and then had 
roused it into the lion heart that fights for the creature 
it loves! 

“Well, it’s easy to see there must not be a second 
dreamer in this family ! ” she said aloud, as the result of 
her thoughts, descending the tower stairs. She barely 
escaped stepping on William Penn, the gray cat, who 
slept by choice on the tower stairs and never exerted 
himself to rise when any one used them, considering it 
was their affair, not his, to get out of the way. He 


38 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


jumped to his feet now, looking reproachfully at Jean, 
as if he thought this was no way for her to begin 
abandoning her dreaming. As she came into the 
dining-room Jean encountered her two brothers, who 
had chanced to enter the house together. Rodney, the 
elder, was fifteen months younger than Jean, a hand¬ 
some, brilliantly-colored lad of fifteen, quick, confident, 
gifted with charm and grace. Stephen, the younger, 
was not yet thirteen. He lacked Rod’s beauty, and 
the qualities that later would develop into social 
graces. But there was that in his face that made it 
quite as attractive as Rod’s, to some people more so. 
There was a steady light in his brown eyes that spoke 
of sterling qualities, and these Steve had. He was 
honest, truthful, kind, loyal, not brilliant, but gifted 
with sound sense. He was, as Jean had said, “a regu¬ 
lar Plymouth Rock of dependence,” young as he was. 

The two boys took the news which Jean poured out 
to them in characteristic manner. Rod flushed, his lips 
quivered, tears sprang to his eyes of which he was 
man enough not to be ashamed. “ I couldn’t bear it if 
she didn’t get well! ” Rod murmured, and bolted. 

Steve turned white and said not a word. He went 
ovey to Jean and put his arms around her after 
Rod had gone. Still without speaking he patted her 
hack, holding her fast. And somehow, comfort and 


JEAN’S AWAKENING 


39 


courage flowed into Jean from the silent little boy, 
and for the first time she felt that she would not be 
alone in bearing the hard days which lay before her 
while her mother was absent, not alone even if her 
mother did not return. 

She kissed Steve with all her might, but neither in 
her turn did she speak. Thus Jean and Steve signed 
their compact to do the best they could for each other 
and for their family, which meant for their mother, 
and together they went up to her room. 

Dorcas, the youngest of the Wolcotts, had come 
in while Jean was in the tower room. She was sitting 
on the floor, tailor-fashion, her favorite position, and 
talking as she always talked, “ fifteen to the dozen,” 
Rod said. She was a dark-haired, dark-eyed little 
creature of ten, not in the least like any of the others. 
Every motion she made was rapid and she made mo¬ 
tions constantly. She seemed compounded of quick¬ 
silver and dynamite and afterward electrified. Noth¬ 
ing more inappropriate than her sober name could have 
been given her, but Dorcas was a name handed down 
in the Wolcott family and her father had been desirous 
to perpetuate it. 

The look in Jean’s face and Steve’s as they entered 
made even Dorcas stop short in her rapid fire of chatter 
to her mother. 


40 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Penny dead ? ” she demanded—she was devoted to 
William Penn and her mixed-up colored kitten, suitably 
called Funny. 

“No indeed!” said Jean. 

Mrs. Wolcott saw that it was incumbent upon her to 
make Steve feel less tragic than he looked. She smiled 
cheerfully and put out her hand to Dorcas. 

“I was going to tell you, littlest girl,” she said. 
“ I am going away for a while, perhaps for several 
weeks—we can’t tell for how long. Jean is to take 
care of you and the boys.” 

“Well, goodness knows, I’d be sorry for us if she 
did! ” cried Dorcas. “ Mamma, what are you going 
away for like that ? Where are you going ? You 
can’t go without me; I’ve got to go where you do! 
Oh, my sakes, mamma, what are you going away 
for?” 

“ Dorcas, my dear, the doctors think I may be quite 
dangerously ill if I do not go. I was hesitating what 
to do and trying to think I could stay here, when dear, 
brave Jean found it all out and has decided that I am 
to go Monday. You must help Jean in every way you 
can. And you must be willing that I should go, as 
Jean is, for they tell me that unless I go away from the 
sea for a long stay I may go away all together—on the 
long journey,” Mrs. Wolcott explained. 


JEAN’S AWAKENING 


41 


“ Die ? ” cried Dorcas horrified. Then, reading in 
Jean’s face that she had understood her mother aright, 
she scrambled to her feet with a cry and flung herself 
headlong into her mother’s lap, in a passion of tears. 

“ Oh, go, go, go ! Go quick! What makes you wait 
till Monday ? There’s a train to-night,” she sobbed. 
“ Oh, my sakes ! Mamma, hurry up and go. I won’t 
care if Jean is no good : I’ll eat what she makes, if it’s 
fearfuller than it will be. Only why can’t I go with 
you ? Why can’t I ? Sea is bad for me, too, when 
you’re not at it.” 

“ Dorcas, don’t cry so ! ” murmured Mrs. Wolcott dis¬ 
tressed, yet knowing that Dorcas would spend herself 
in this wild sobbing and be ready to see some advan¬ 
tage in her mother’s going in an hour or so. 

She looked at Steve and saw how miserable he was, 
so silent, so ready to put his grief out of sight. 

u My dear lad, you are the one I count on most to 
sustain Jean and keep everything right till I get back,” 
she said, knowing that this, which was true, would be 
the most comforting thing that she could say to Stephen. 

“We’ll be all right, mother; we’ll get on. What 
you don’t want to do is worry about us, that’s all,” said 
Steve, flushing painfully in his effort to hold back tears 
as he put his square brown hand in the thin one his 
mother held out to him. 


42 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ And you will be perfectly good, and obedient to 
Jean, and helpful to her till I come home, won’t you, 
little Dorcas?” Mrs. Wolcott added to her youngest, 
who was crying less tempestuously. 

“ I don’t know; it’s ’cording to how long you stay,” 
said Dorcas chokingly. “ I never am good too long, 
you know.” 

They all laughed; it was impossible to help it, and 
Dorcas brightened amazingly at having brought this 
about. There was one good feature about Dorcas’ 
somewhat wearing traits, no one was able to keep sad 
or dull long where she was. 


CHAPTER III 


JEAN IN THE FOG 

J EAN carried out her programme. She did not actu¬ 
ally kidnap Miss Lizzie Babcock, who was dress¬ 
maker-in-chief to all the Tidewaters, East Tidewater, 
West Tidewater, Tidewater Centre and Tidewater 
proper, the original settlement, but she did convince the 
brisk little dressmaker that her mother’s necessities 
were sufficiently urgent to make her get her other en¬ 
gagements cancelled. When her customers learned from 
Miss Lizzie that Mrs. Wolcott was to be hurriedly made 
ready to go away to preserve her life they were all 
willing to release Miss Lizzie, for the Wolcotts, though 
far from rich, ranked first among Tidewater aristo¬ 
crats; as lineal Tidewater residents, descended from 
colonial settlers, they were much “ looked up to.” Mrs. 
Wolcott was beloved for herself, and she was also 
greatly respected and somewhat pitied on the sly, for 
Bentley Wolcott’s way of dreaming and accomplishing 
nothing for his family’s comfort was a trait strongly in 
opposition to the Tidewater standards of keen energy. 
Miss Lizzie came and sewed frantically. Mrs. Wol- 
43 


44 


HER DAUGHTEE JEAN 


cott’s Cousin Rhoda, Mrs. Towne, came to help, so did 
Helen Lumley’s mother and practical Helen herself, 
and Mr. Wolcott’s stepmother, Mrs. Claudia Wolcott, 
whom the children called “ Step-grand,” abbreviating 
step-grandmother, came also ; it was really like the sew¬ 
ing society Rod called it. The result of this activity' 
was that on Saturday night Mrs. Wolcott’s new trunk 
stood in the hall packed to the brim, its lid not closed, 
nor quite all the small last things in its upper tray com¬ 
partments, but lacking only this to be ready to be borne 
out and to the station. 

Sunday intervened, a strange day with its sense of 
the whole world at rest combined with unrestful minds 
in the Wolcott household, and with its afternoon and 
evening interrupted by many friends and acquaintances 
dropping in to bid Mrs. Wolcott good-bye and to wish 
her Godspeed. 

Jean slumbered fitfully that night, falling into a 
light sleep to waken with a start, first to wonder, then 
to remember with a pang what was to happen. Before 
dawn she slipped out of her own bed and stole softly 
into her mother’s room. Dorcas had begged and been 
allowed the baby’s privilege of sleeping with her mother 
that last night; she lay asleep curled close to her 
mother’s side. Mrs. Wolcott was awake ; she held out 
a hand to invite Jean to her, and the big girl crept to 


JEAN IN THE FOG 


45 


her, as much a child at heart as the younger one who 
had been their mother’s baby more recently. Without 
speaking, lest they waken Dorcas, mother and daughter 
waited for the dawn, the mother stroking Jean’s soft 
hair, the girl fondling the thin hand that had so unself¬ 
ishly labored for her all her sixteen years of life. 

The dawn was long coming ; the tall old clock below 
stairs struck six without its evidence. The day had 
begun, early rising was necessary, for Mrs. Wolcott 
was to take a morning train, and, somehow, it is always 
difficult to rise in time to get last things done in time to 
take a train that leaves at any hour before noon. 

“ Time to get up, little Mistress Housekeeper! ” 
whispered Jean’s mother in her ear. 

Jean turned and kissed her mother, a long, clinging 
kiss, with her arms around the slender shoulders. 
Dorcas stirred and muttered. Jean released her mother 
and stole away as softly as she had come, having bade 
her the real farewell in that moment. Jean dressed 
and went down-stairs before any others of the family 
appeared. 

The tardy daybreak was explained. A fog was 
drifting swiftly inland. It came driven before a hard 
northeast wind which blew chill against Jean’s face, 
setting it tingling as she opened the door to look out. 
It dampened her hair and hung like a veil of mist on 


46 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


her lashes, but, though it clouded her outward vision, 
it helped her inwardly to see clearly that it was best 
that her precious mother was going up to the moun¬ 
tains that day, away from the sea fog that might harm 
her, though to Jean it was as refreshing as a tonic. 

Jean turned and went into the house. She was be¬ 
ginning her service already by preparing breakfast. 
She was ashamed and irritated to find herself so awk¬ 
ward at the simplest tasks. She set her teeth and at¬ 
tacked them with such energy that she defeated her 
own ends, for deft touches and patience succeed better 
than assaults on contrary moods of utensils and ma¬ 
terials. 

The morning thus passed busily in the hurried con¬ 
fusion of getting a traveler off, which leaves little room 
for emotion to get to the surface, but is the more wear¬ 
ing on nerves. 

At last came the hour of departure, the moment for 
good-bye. Mrs. Wolcott’s cousin was going with her. 
Mr. Wolcott was taking them to the station, driving Old 
King Cole, the black horse who had been one of the 
Wolcotts as long as Jean could remember. Dorcas in¬ 
sisted on seeing her mother off, so there was hardly 
room for Jean in any case, but she preferred to say 
good-bye to her mother at home, knowing what she 
should do when she had said it and she was alone. 


JEAN IN THE FOG 


47 


Both boys had walked to the station. For a last hur¬ 
ried, but charged moment Mrs. Wolcott clung to Jean, 
overwhelmed with an influx of all her fears in leaving 
the delicate, inexperienced girl, whom she had always 
shielded, to face her new burdens and responsibilities. 

It was Jean now who was the courageous one. She 
managed to smile at her mother and to bid her good¬ 
bye with a steady voice in a cheerful key, and she stood 
steadily smiling as they drove away, waving her hand 
till the fog shut the carriage from sight. 

Jean stood alone on the fog-shrouded steps, she did 
not know how long. The taste of the brine was on her 
lips, the bitterness of loneliness in her heart and a great 
fear clutched her, now that there was nothing to help 
her fight it off, as to how this dear mother would re¬ 
turn. She dreaded to go back into the silent house. 
Besides all this, and in spite of the minute instructions 
with which her mother had filled the past five days 
since it had been decided that she was to go away, a 
wave of helplessness swept over Jean, wiping out her 
courage as the long easterly sea swell rolling against the 
beach below her was wiping every mark from the sand. 

The time had come for a good cry and, leaning her 
head against the kindly old house that had mothered so 
many Wolcotts, Jean gave herself up to having it with 
all the abandon that the repression of the past days in- 


48 


HEB DATJGHTEB JEAK 


sured. The sense of utter desolation was new to the 
girl who had been enveloped in her mother’s love and 
sheltered from pain all her short life. The knowledge 
that this mother had gone, gone because she was ill, 
overwhelmed her. She felt that she had lost her bear¬ 
ings, her ship itself, in the fog and she could not see 
ahead. 

But after a wholesome time of having it all out with 
herself Jean sobbed less violently ; she began to try to 
see light and succeeded. After all how good it was 
that the beloved mother had gone away from this fog 
and chilling wind! How blessed it was that it had 
been Jean herself who had sent her ! Her courage 
rose as she summoned it. She would not fail her 
mother, she would fight for her by making her absence 
possible until she could come back cured. Jean re¬ 
solved to keep to the last letter the pledges which she 
had made to her mother and to herself. 

“ It’s like being knighted and sent out to battle with a 
dragon. It’s the accolade of courage. The Accolade 
of Courage! Wouldn’t that make a fine title for a 
poem ! ” thought Jean, thus proving herself to be still 
the old Jean in the midst of the new one. Then she 
proved the new one ascendant by immediately adding 
in her thoughts: “ I believe I’ll try to make father’s 
favorite pudding for dinner; mother marked it in the 


JEAN IN THE FOG 


49 


book. And I don’t believe any one remembered to 
feed Penny and Funny this morning.” 

She turned, then heard a step coming toward her, 
muffled by the fog, but growing clearer, and, in a mo¬ 
ment, explained by the advent of a tall figure coming 
around the corner of the house. Jean turned and the 
big boy smiled up at her cordially. The big boy’s face 
was handsome and wholesome, one of those truthful, 
friendly faces which seem to dissipate fogs of all sorts 
and, at the same time, to make everything around them 
seem foggy by contrast. The boy was evidently two 
or three years older than Jean, which would have en¬ 
titled him to the respectful title of “ young man,” but 
there was a quality of boyhood about him that made 
Jean, at sixteen, seem older than he, at nearly nineteen. 
Jean had spent her life thoughtfully, while this neigh¬ 
bor lad had spent his actively, so Jean was actually his 
equal in maturity and allowed herself to feel decidedly 
his superior, for he was not bookish and she looked 
down upon him from her greater mental altitude. Still 
Jean liked him, liked and respected him more than she 
admitted to herself. 

“ Hallo, Roger—good-morning,” she said. 

“ Just came around to see you were all right, Jean,” 
returned Roger cheerfully, looking with pity in his 
honest eyes at Jean’s swollen ones. It was ungrateful 


50 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


of her not to appreciate how blind he was to the mar¬ 
ring effect of tears. “ If there’s anything you want, any¬ 
thing Rod isn’t able to do for you, call on me. I’m 
going to sign myself : ‘ Faithfully and devotedly your 
servant, Roger Cathcart,’ all the while your mother is 
gone.” 

“ You are a good boy, Roger,” said Jean. “ I ought 
to get on. Tidewater is rallying around me. I suppose 
it is because Tidewater knows I’m no good at house¬ 
keeping ; it knows that ‘ united I stand, divided I fall.’ ” 

Roger laughed. “You never got the chance to 
show what you could do-” 

“ Never took it,” murmured Jean. 

“ But you’ll get there all right,” Roger ended his 
sentence, disregarding her. “ Look here, Jean, perhaps 
you don’t care about my opinion, but I’d like to have 
you understand that I think it’s fine the way you’ve 
packed your mother off and saddled everything your¬ 
self. If you do think, as you once told me, that I’m 
the only one in all Tidewater who laughs at your 
aspirations and has no interest in your poetry, you can 
be mighty sure I appreciate this phase of you ! And 
I’m awfully glad, Jean, that you’ve got it in you. I 
like to see you doing big things, though you do think I 
don’t. It’s only that we differed in our measure of 
what was biggest.” 


JEAN IN THE FOG 


51 


“ Really, Roger Cathcart,” said Jean, “ it doesn’t 
strike me as particularly praiseworthy that a girl 
sixteen years old should keep house for her mother 
under these circumstances. Most girls would be will¬ 
ing to do as much as that to save their mother’s life. I 
don’t mind your thinking I ought not to devote myself 
to writing, and I don’t feel overwhelmed by your ap¬ 
proval of my giving it up for a while—of course you 
know it is only for a while.” 

Roger smiled amiably, so amiably that it was trying 
to one who was doing her best to snub him. 

u I love little pussy, 

Her temper’s so warm, 

But her claws are too tiny 
To do me much harm,” 

he chanted, and his singing voice was delightful. 
“ You didn’t know I could make up poetry too, did you, 
Jeannie ? I’ll forgive you, little girl! Under these 
circumstances, as you say, I can’t very well be nasty to 
you in return, can I ? ” he asked, satisfied to see that 
Jean was really getting annoyed and so forgetting her 
trouble. “ Jean, in all seriousness,” Roger went on, “ I 
have taken off my hat to you, knowing what a hard 
time this is for you, and you can’t make me cover as 
long as you so thoroughly deserve my respectful ad- 


52 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


miration. Say, Jean dear, don’t be so frosty, so 
prickly, and don’t pretend you don’t know how much I 
appreciate all your talents, because I know you do. I 
wish we could get back to the old chummy days when 
we were in the third and fifth readers, respectively. 
You got to be a chestnut burr along about the time 
you went into the sixth, and I passed up to the high 
school. Little Jean Wolcott, all eyes, and with hair 
that tickled a big boy when he carried her books home 
and helped her over mud puddles, was a dear, sweet, 
friendly little chum ! I wish I had her back, only a 
little bigger. This is going to be a hard pull for you, 
mighty hard ; you haven’t an idea how tired you’ll be 
after a while, and you’ll be so lonely and discouraged 
sometimes that it will take all there is to get through it. 
Now, when those days come, I wish, I most tremen¬ 
dously wish, you’d say to yourself : ‘ There’s Roger ; 
I’ll call on him ! ’ It would make me no end happy if 
I could do anything for you. Rod’s only fifteen, and, 
though Steve is a little brick, he and Dorcas are chil¬ 
dren. I’m nearly three years older than you are, and 
if there were anything I could do for you, from chop¬ 
ping wood to taking you walking or rowing when you 
want heartening, it would be like finding a pot of gold 
to have you call on me. Honest, Jean, please count on 
me, at least while you’re fighting this battle.” 


JEAN IN THE FOG 


53 


Roger stood with his foot on the lower step, look¬ 
ing up through the fog with such warm, true eyes 
that Jean melted under their gaze. Her chin trembled 
a little and she flushed, as she said gently: 

“ You are kind, Roger, and I do thank you ! If I 
need you I will call upon you, but I don’t see what 
there can be for you to do. I don’t mean to let myself 
get discouraged. Still, I suppose it will be harder than 
I realize, because I’m not used to being useful—not this 
way. You’ll never get me to admit that a poet is not 
at least as useful as a cook.” 

“ Be a woman first and a poet afterward,” cried 
Roger eagerly. “ There are plenty of valuable women 
who are not poets, but I don’t see what good a poet is 
if she isn’t a true, womanly woman.” 

“ Oh, dear; you’re only a big boy, but you’re just 
like all men ! ” sighed Jean. “ What you mean when 
you say 4 a true womanly woman ’ is one who knows 
how to sew for you and bake and brew for you. I 
don’t believe a poet ought to be anything but a poet. 
I think it must be true that each art demands every bit 
of the person who tries to worship it.” 

“ Then how could a fellow help hating this art talk, 
if art is going to claim all there is of the sweetest and 
best-” 

“Roger,” interrupted Jean hotly, “you are such a 


54 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


dunce ! Just as soon—if it ever does happen !—as we 
begin to get back to that third-and-fifth-reader chummi¬ 
ness you sigh for, you spoil it! How can I like you 
when you are so selfish, so horrid, so unsympathetic to 
the best in me ? Oh, dear me; just a minute ago you 
were so nice and kind and I felt as though I’d count 
you right in with Rod and Steve! And now I’m cross to 
you again and saying hard things to you! It’s all your 
fault, really. When I want a friend I have to count on 
Helen ; you can depend on her. She likes me, but she 
isn’t jealous of my work; she doesn’t want me to let 
my best gift rust out; she wouldn’t like to have me 
turn into a drab, flat, thin, worn-out, ordinary creature 
like Minervy Tappan, the rag carpet weaver over at 
Tidewater Centre! ” 

To his own chagrin a moment later, and to Jean’s 
present disgust, Roger threw back his head and laughed 
at this tirade, laughed so loud and heartily that the 
peal seemed to make a hole in the fog. Instantly he 
checked himself, however, and solemnly begged Jean’s 
pardon. 

“ That struck me as an extreme statement, that’s all,” 
he explained. “ I’m not conscious of desiring you to 
grow like Minervy Tappan.” 

“ There’s no use, Roger; we always quarrel,” said 
Jean turning away. 


JEAN IN THE FOG 


55 


“ Only one of us, Jean, only one of us,” protested 
Roger eagerly. “ I never quarrel. My mother asked 
me to say to you, Jean, that if there’s anything that 
you want to know run over to her at any hour of the 
day or night and she will be only too glad to help you 
out with advice or service. She says to go to her in 
any sort of trouble, just as you would go to your 
mother—as near as it can be.” 

“ She is a dear,” said Jean heartily. “ Your mother 
is not only the best housekeeper, but the best woman 
in all the Tidewaters—now that my mother is away! 
Thank her, and tell her I shall be grateful for her help 
when I get into a scrape. Now I must go in, Roger; 
I have a great deal to do.” 

“ Run along, little boy; go play,” laughed Roger. 
“All right; I’ll go. Forgive me, Jean, if I offended you. 
Indeed I didn’t mean any harm. But it didn’t harm 
you to get a bit huffy ; you can’t feel sad and huffy at 
the same time.” 

“ Did you make me provoked purposely ? ” demanded 
Jean, minded both to laugh and to be annoyed afresh. 

“ Not exactly; it happened, but I saw at once how 
lucky it was,” said Roger with his jolly laugh. 

“ You treat me as if I were no older than Dorcas,” 
said Jean, still between wrath and amusement. 

“That comes of beginning to get acquainted when you 


56 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


weren’t as old as Dorcas,” retorted Roger. “ Good¬ 
bye, Jeannie. Don’t forget that you’ve promised to let 
me be first aid to the injured, if you’re it, and however 
you’re injured. And try to forget how mean I am ! 
Honest truth, Jean, I haven’t a thing in the world 
against poetry and poets, if only they don’t get such 
hold of you that nobody can pull you loose.” 

“ Oh, I know you’re all right, Roger; you’re as nice 
as a boy can be in all sensible, practical ways,” said 
Jean, getting even with him. 

Roger made a wry face. “ Sounds as if I were a 
ham sandwich,” he said. 

“You’ve actually remembered hearing of Roger 
Bacon, I do believe! That’s what made you think of 
ham sandwiches, when a hammer would have been as 
appropriate,” cried Jean, this time quite gleefully. 
“ Good-bye, Roger. I mayn’t seem so, but I am grate¬ 
ful, and I’ll be more so when you’ve gone and I can 
think over your kindness without your being here rub¬ 
bing me up the wrong way.” 

Roger started off at a dead run on hearing this, pull¬ 
ing down his hat with one hand, waving the other in 
farewell behind him without turning around, as if to 
show that his presence having such bad effect he would 
lose no time in removing himself. 

Jean went into the house laughing. It was only 


JEAN IN THE FOG 


57 


when she had walked through to the kitchen that she 
realized that she had thus entered the house which, a 
short time before, had seemed too dreary to go into. 

“Well, Roger really is nice,” she said aloud in her 
surprise. “ He’s commonplace, I suppose, but he’s aw¬ 
fully kind and loyal.” Then she fell to putting coal 
on the stove with much energy, her spirits more cheer¬ 
ful than she could have believed they would be on this 
first, melancholy morning. 

Rod and Steve came in, Dorcas following them. 
They all three glanced with elaborate carelessness at 
Jean, and showed their relieved surprise plainly when 
they saw her smiling. 

“ Any chance of eating ? ” inquired Rod. 

“ We’re going to have a regular banquet dinner, but 
it is going to be late,” replied Jean confidently. 


CHAPTER IT 


JEAN THE HOUSEKEEPER 

W HO that has ever continued in well-doing does 
not know the difference between courageous 
beginning and the dead level of discouraging mid-way ? 

That first dinner of Jean’s was a success ; the meat 
was neither too rare nor burned, the vegetables conde¬ 
scended to boil in time and not to pieces, and Mr. Wol¬ 
cott’s favorite pudding turned out in possession of its 
usual virtues. 

Rod and Steve were angels of helpfulness, not only 
that first day, but for three days, and Dorcas laid aside 
her pranks and soberly helped her big sister for a little 
longer than that. When Dorcas chose to be useful she 
was equal to an assistant of several more years; she 
saw what needed doing and she competently did it. 
As Miss Lizzie Babcock said, “ Dorcas was as smart as 
a steel trap and keen as a weasel, but she had such an 
all-over mindedness that it didn’t seem to do any good. 
However,” she charitably added, “ a person wasn’t over 
turning-out days, let alone dead and buried, at ten years 
old.” 


58 


JEAN THE HOUSEKEEPER 


59 


Tidewater hoped a great deal from Dorcas Wolcott’s 
“ turning out,” and it began to take heart in regard to 
Jean, whose neglected talent it inconsistently mourned, 
while rejoicing in the way the girl was taking the helm 
at a crisis. Tidewater had a great deal of interest in 
all the members of its younger generations, and each 
family knew precisely wherein all the others had made 
a mistake in training their children. 

Steve was the only one who went on steadily after 
the first eager embracing of martyrdom, the first en¬ 
thusiasm of doing hard things for the dear, sick mother’s 
sake. Steve helped Jean with perfect fidelity, never 
forgot, never lost patience; Jean was ashamed of her 
own unvoiced temptations to weary when she saw re¬ 
liable little Steve plodding along “ like his own grand¬ 
father,” she told him lovingly. 

Mr. Wolcott’s birthday was the twenty-third of May 
and Jean resolved to celebrate it by a small party. The 
guests could not be chosen from among Mr. Wolcott’s 
special cronies, for he had none. Friendly with every 
one in all the Tidewaters Mr. Wolcott had no close 
friends, as how could he have, withdrawn from man¬ 
kind, dreaming days away up in the tower room ? So, 
lacking specially appropriate people to invite, Jean 
asked Helen and Roger, who would enliven the occa¬ 
sion, and Mrs. Claudia Wolcott. 


60 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Mr. Wolcott liked his stepmother exceedingly. She 
was an eccentric person, not given to demonstration, 
but when she liked any one she liked them thoroughly, 
and she disliked as profoundly and immovably. She 
had been a just and kind stepmother to the little Bent¬ 
ley Wolcott and the two had remained good friends, in 
their queer way, seeing little of each other, but retain¬ 
ing considerable affection for each other through sub¬ 
sequent years. The Wolcott children, except Dorcas, all 
had feared and consequently disliked their “ Step-grand,” 
each in turn, during their early childhood, but as they 
grew older they were juster to her, and Jean had now 
reached the point of liking her. Dorcas had never 
feared her ; Dorcas had always thought her funny, but 
Dorcas feared no one and nothing; Dorcas saw some¬ 
thing humorous in nearly everything in creation. 

Helen came over on the morning of the twenty-third 
to stay all day and help Jean get up the birthday din¬ 
ner. It was to be an innovation in Tidewater, a dinner 
at seven o’clock, and though the guests were but three, 
and one of them her assistant, only one of them for¬ 
midable, still Jean was flustered by the undertaking. 

“ I told father that he must look perfectly beautiful 
this evening, Nell,” said Jean, whisking out a mixing 
bowl and dusting it—though it did not require it—be¬ 
fore she set it on the table. “ I want Step-grand to see 


JEAN THE HOUSEKEEPER 


61 


that he is not neglected. You know father is just as 
likely to come down at the last moment in his working 
coat as not! Mother always says that she dreads the 
longer days because father forgets six o’clock; if he 
gets an inspiration he goes on working in the tower 
room till the light fades ! However, I can’t say much; 
I’m his own child ! Rod promised to go up at quarter 
past six to-night and see that he is made lovely. And 
Rod is getting to be the most fussy boy about clothes 
you ever saw! Father seemed very much pleased 
when I told him about the dinner. He said it was a 
keen pleasure to have his first baby remembering his 
birthday, and grown big enough to give him a dinner 
party. Wasn’t that a nice, ’cute little speech ? Father 
is really a duck when you can get him up out of the 
water; he’s so apt to be ’way below the surface! 
Helen, I had another cheerful letter from mother to¬ 
day. She says she feels the strength returning and the 
doctor at the sanitorium encourages her ! I meant to 
have told you the first thing.” 

“ I thought you had heard again,” nodded Helen. 
“ You are always chattering like this on your letter 
day.” 

“ If only there never comes any other news from 
there ! ” Jean said. “ Of course the first ones couldn’t 
be much, either way, but these last two say mother 


62 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


feels better. Nell, it makes up for this and this and 
this!” Jean dropped her utensils and held up her 
hand, pointing to a burn, a cut and a blister in turn as 
she spoke. 

“ Your pretty hands ! ” said Helen regretfully. “ I 
always envied you your hands, but I’m not mean enough 
to want them spoiled.” She looked dissatisfiedly at 
her own firmly knit hands as she spoke and then at 
Jean’s, slender, shapely, small, full of refinement, 
nervously expressive. “ I don’t mind the wounds 
so much, for they will heal, but they are getting 
roughened.” 

“ Yes,” said Jean pensively. “ I hate it. But maybe 
that will wear away, too. Though I don’t see how it 
can, for I mean to keep on using them after mother 
comes back. No more idleness for these little paws! 
But if I found I could earn money writing it wouldn’t 
be wrong for me to do that and hire some one to do 
housework, would it ? Because I don’t believe I ever 
in all this world could do it well! ” 

“ Of course it wouldn’t be wrong! Any more than 
it would be wrong for the boys to go into business in¬ 
stead of doing housework. Mother said the other day 
she really believed you were intended for other things, 
and had been right to dream of being a writer. She 
said it was all the more praiseworthy in you to do so well 


JEAN THE HOUSEKEEPER 


63 


now,” said Helen, whose admiration for Jean knew no 
bounds. 

“Well, whatever is to happen by and by I can feel 
that this is good for me now,” said Jean cheerfully. 
“ I couldn’t tell to save me what it is doing to me, but 
I can feel myself stretching out, as if I were growing 
big, inside, you know—in my mind and soul.” 

“ And when you get into a stew—as you do pretty 
often, Jeannie !—I suppose that is your soul creaking 
as it stretches out, isn’t it ? ” asked Helen. 

“ I ’spect! ” agreed Jean, and both girls laughed 
with girlish enjoyment of a small jest. “ Now where 
is that Dorcas witch ? ” demanded Jean, sobering down 
to the realities of what was before her and a sudden 
realization of its being nearly eleven o’clock. 

“ I’d like to see the person who could answer that 
question ! ” cried Helen. “ Do you need her ? I’ll hunt 
her up for you.” 

“ I want her to stone raisins,” said Jean. 

“ Don’t begin that cake before lunch, Jean. You’ll 
get into a rush. Let’s stuff the chicken and then get 
the boys’ lunch ready; they’ll soon be in, and get it 
out of the way early, and then make our cake and 
dessert with a calm, unflustered mind,” suggested 
Helen, whose aversion to haste kept her from many an 


error. 


64 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“All right, Helen Lumley-lub’ly! ” assented Jean. 
“It’s not for the likes of me to say you’re wrong. 
Steve gets dismissed at quarter to twelve to help me, 
you know ; Rod comes in at ten minutes after twelve. 
I’m going to give them a cold lunch with hope to-day 
—hope of a big dinner at night.” 

After the lunch had been hastily eaten and cleared 
away Dorcas appeared, nonchalant, at her ease, in spite 
of the fact that she was late aud Jean was anxious 
about her, and in spite of the disconcerting fact that 
she was dripping from head to foot. 

“ Dorcas Wolcott, what is it this time ? ” cried Jean, 
beginning to pull off her clothing, for to be wet 
through and through in May is not safe nor comfort¬ 
able. 

“You’d better have sent me to school, Jean,” said 
Dorcas, laying the blame on the foundation of the day, 
not on her own subsequent actions. “ Old Sam Webster, 
down on the beach, said: 4 Satan finds some mischief 
still for idle hands to do.’ Seems’s if Satan watched 
my hands all the time to see when they’re idle, 
doesn’t it?” 

44 It certainly does,” agreed Jean with gusto. 44 Oh, 
Nell, you are a regular mother-in-Israel girl! That 
warm blanket is just what this little sinner needs! I’ll 
wrap you up and set you in front of the stove and give 


JEAN THE HOUSEKEEPER 


65 


you hot milk, Dorcas. If you aren’t sick it will be a 
mercy ! Nell, let’s rub her; I ought to do something 
worse than that, I’m sure! Tell me what you’ve been 
up to, Dorcas.” 

“Oh, you talk so much a person can’t tell you,” 
sighed Dorcas. “ I went down on the beach and I met 
a boy; he was a Portuguese boy, I guess, because no¬ 
body could be tanned so black in May. I talked to 
him and he was quite nice. He said he was awfully 
strong, ’cause he hauled codfish lines and bluefish, too, 
in summer, and rowed. And I bet him I could push 
that old dory out; you know—the one that’s been 
hauled up on the beach so long. And he dared me try 
it. So I did, and I got it out, too! Then we thought 
we’d play Spanish Armada. He was all right for the 
Spanish part, you know ; it’s ’most the same. And we 
went out a little way. The old dory leaked like every¬ 
thing, so it sank pretty soon, but I was so wet before 
that it didn’t matter.” 

“ Dorcas ! You can’t swim ! ” cried Jean, white with 
horror over this worse prank than usual. 

“No, but the boy could, dandy,” said Dorcas calmly. 
“ He saved me, towed me in. It’s exciting having your 
life saved! ” 

“ Dorcas, what can I say to you ? ” cried Jean in pro¬ 
found distress. “ There is nothing I can say that you 


66 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


do not already know. You are much too old to do 
such a thing as this. This is entirely beyond mischief. 
Do you think there is any excuse for a girl of ten risk¬ 
ing her life, risking her poor mother’s coming home to 
find her drowned ? ” 

Dorcas looked at Jean with a twinkle. “ Mother 
wouldn’t like any better to have me drowned if she was 
at home,” she said. 

Then, her sense of nonsense satisfied, she suddenly 
became contrite, threw her arms around her sister, and 
wheedled her with eyes no longer laughing, but 
melting. “ Of course I know better, Jean,” she said. 
“ I know a lot better than I do all the time, only when 
I do things I don’t seem to know better, not that min¬ 
ute. It just seems as though there wasn’t anything 
better than what I’m going to do. I’m sorry.” 

“ Well, dear,” said Jean, feeling that Dorcas might 
well be beyond her wisdom, since their mother found 
her a problem, “I suppose we must do as mother 
says, and get on with you a day at a time and hope 
you’ll be a little less dreadful some time.” 

“Jean Wolcott,” said Dorcas with a swift change of 
manner, “I can’t stand this; I’m cooking. I don’t 
think I ought to be roasted on my own father’s birth¬ 
day because I might have been drowned.” 

“Run away, then, and dress yourself,” sighed Jean, 


JEAN THE HOUSEKEEPER 


67 


adding to Helen, as Dorcas fled and the two big girls 
allowed themselves to laugh: “ Did you ever in all your 
life see such a child ? Nothing makes the least dent on 
her mind; she’s thistle-down! ” 

Dorcas returned freshly clad and somewhat subdued, 
and Jean set her to stoning raisins. She perched her¬ 
self on a step-ladder that happened to be in the kitchen, 
seating herself backward, her feet thrust through the back 
of the steps, using the step above her as a work table for 
her bowl of fruit and her bowl of water to dip sticky 
fingers in. Thus she managed to render her task less 
monotonous. 

“ Some one’s coming, Jean,” announced Dorcas pres¬ 
ently, her height giving her command of a greater 
length of view than those on the floor had. 

“ Some one coming—oh, dear! Why, it’s Step-grand 
already ! ” exclaimed Jean. 

“I came early to see how you were getting on, 
Jean,” said Mrs. Claudia Wolcott as she entered, fol¬ 
lowing speedily upon Dorcas’ announcement of her 
coming. 

“ Beautifully, Step-grand,” cried Jean, presenting her 
flushed cheek to Mrs. Wolcott, who ignored it, not 
approving of kissing. 

“ You look better,” said Mrs. Wolcott. “ I always 
said there wasn’t a thing the matter with you but 


68 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


inertia, clear inertia. I’ve always told your mother 
from the start, 4 Mary,’ I used to say when you were 
almost a baby, 4, she may be only two, or four, or six ’— 
all along I used to say this — 4 but all that ails that child 
is pure nothingness! The minute she is interested 
in something she gets color and is as lively as a cricket. 
You give Jean part of the housework, Mary,’ I used to 
say as you grew older, 4 you put her to work and stop 
her dawdling over her books and poetry writing and 
you’ll find out she’ll come out all right.’ But your 
mother wouldn’t hear to forcing you; dreadfully afraid 
of losing you she was from the start, because you were 
a big-eyed, pale, quiet little thing. Pallor isn’t a sign, 
not always. You’re not pale now, though; never saw 
you looking so well. And you get on nicely, do you ? 
Helen probably helps you.” 

44 Yes, I get on fairly, and I’m learning ; Helen does 
help,” said Jean modestly. 

44 H’m! Let me look into your closets,” said Mrs. 
Claudia Wolcott. 44 The middle of the floor doesn’t 
prove a thing, still less the parlor, but show me the 
kitchen corners and the closets and I’ll know what 
kind of housekeeping’s done.” 

She threw open the kitchen closet door as she spoke, 
surveyed the shelves critically, followed this investiga¬ 
tion with one of the pantry, equally keen, while Dorcas, 


JEAN THE HOUSEKEEPER 


69 


unnoted on her perch, grew red and puffy-cheeked in a 
desperate effort to keep from laughing. 

“ Pretty well, step-granddaughter, pretty well,” said 
Jean’s eccentric relative, turning upon the girl as she 
closed the last door. “ I’m going up-stairs to lay off my 
things, and then, if there’s anything I can do to help 
with this solemn dinner, I’ll come down and do it. I 
have an apron on under my skirt, so all I have to do is 
to whisk it off and put it on over the skirt. Never 
borrow; that’s my motto—one of my mottoes! ” 

“ I imagine Step-grand has a whole mindful of mot¬ 
toes to go by,” said Jean as Mrs. Claudia Wolcott 
disappeared. 

When she came back the apron and skirt had reversed 
their order; her black skirt was competently shrouded 
in blue and white gingham which nearly met in the 
back. 

“At least you don’t clutter,” Mrs. Wolcott said as 
she entered. “ The rooms up-stairs look neat. I abhor 
cluttering. Keep in order as you go and you won’t 
need tremendous upheavals, I say. It’s just as true in 
the moral order as it is of housekeeping. Dorcas, why 
on earth are you looped through that step-ladder back¬ 
ward ? What are you on a ladder for at all ? ” she 
demanded, suddenly espying Dorcas. 

“Dorcas finds it easier to do her duty if she does 


70 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


it in a queer position,” laughed Jean. “Dear Step- 
grand, there isn’t anything for you to do now. Sit 
down by the window and talk to us.” 

“ I’ll knit,” said Mrs. Wolcott, producing her work 
from a bag she carried; she never wasted time. 

Mrs. Claudia knit and talked her eccentric, crisp, yet 
kindly wisdom to the girls, proving her consideration 
by knitting steadily and not seeming to see that Helen 
took hold of everything that she did less awkwardly 
than Jean, nor that Dorcas, descended from her pinna¬ 
cle, her task completed, rebelled in vigorous dumb 
protest, lest her elderly relative discover her, against 
being required to help with table setting in the dining¬ 
room. But the sharp eyes were still sharp, in spite of 
spectacles; Mrs. Claudia Wolcott saw everything, 
though the glasses she then wore were reading glasses, 
not for long distance. 

The boys came in, Steve early, and he began to carry 
out ashes and bring in coal, to pump water for Old 
King Cole and take it out to him, without a word of 
suggestion from Jean. Rod came in late, in a fluster, 
flushed, handsome, laughing, saluted Mrs. Wolcott 
with a kiss on her forehead before she had time to head 
him off with a hand-shake, pulled Dorcas’ hair and 
Funny’s tail, impartially, by way of greeting, and 
urgently demanded of Jean what he should do. 


JEAN THE HOUSEKEEPER 


71 


“ Your brother’s done all the chores already,” Mrs. 
Wolcott forestalled Jean in replying, and Rodney’s face 
darkened, for he greatly wished to be admired. 

“ There isn’t anything just now, Rod,” said Jean, 
fulfilling her mother’s task of soothing the elder boy’s 
wounded vanity. Rod frequently was annoyed by an 
implication that he was remiss. Rodney wanted 
hungrily to be rated high, but he did not always make 
sure of his rating by deserving it. “ Perhaps you may 
as well go up and see that father is getting ready now. 
That was to be Rod’s part of the preparations, Step- 
grand,” Jean continued. “ I honestly believe that our 
dinner is a brilliant success ! Everything father likes 
•best and everything turned out good ! Just make him 
beautiful, Rodney, and we’ll have dinner served a little 
before the time we set There comes Roger now! 
And he’s bringing flowers! Isn’t that fine! Helen 
and I could not get any; we were going to use the 
fern dish. Roger must have sent for flowers some¬ 
where.” 

Roger came in with established intimacy, straight 
into the kitchen. 

“ Hallo, cook ; where’s the lady of the house ? ” he 
cried, going up to Jean, oblivious to any one else for a 
moment. 

“ Here she is! ” said Jean, pulling her apron around 


72 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


to the back and assuming an air to suit the role of 
hostess, as she offered Roger her hand. 

“ There are no flowers in Tidewater to-day, so I had 
these sent down from Boston by parcels post,” Roger 
said, giving the big white box he carried to Jean. 
“ They are all tulips. I decided, if your father was 
born in May, he must have a flower that blooms out¬ 
doors in his own month.” 

“ That’s what I call a delicate and poetical thought, 
Roger,” cried Jean, in refreshing enthusiasm. “Run 
get the cut glass bowl, the big one, Steve, and Dorcas, 
bring the tall glass. We’ll make a sheaf of tulips 
growing out of a bowl of themselves. Oh, Roger, 
they are glorious! ” The whole room seemed filled 
by the radiance, the spring odor of the glowing, crisp 
tulips as Jean shook them out on the table, where they 
lay as if a mammoth kaleidoscope had been broken on it. 

Rodney came slowly into the room, his face a study. 
“ Say, Jean, where is father ? ” he asked. 

“ In the tower room ? Then in his own room ? ” said 
Jean interrogatively, as Rod shook his head. . 

“ Not a bit,” Rod said. “ I’ve hunted all through ; 
he’s gone. Bet you what yoji dare he’s forgotten and 
gone off! ” 

“ Oh, no, he hasn’t; he couldn’t! ” cried Jean, tears 
in her voice at the mere possibility, and a sudden 


JEAN THE HOUSEKEEPER 73 

sense of fatigue upon her. “ He’s—you’ve overlooked 
him ! ” 

“ As if he were a walking stick ! Likely ! ” said Rod. 
“ He’s not in this house, that’s sure.” 

“ I’ll go down street and see if he’s anywhere around,” 
said Steve. “ Don’t worry, Jean; he’ll turn up. It’s 
early yet. He’ll get hungry and remember. I’ll go 
hunt him.” 

“ Such a nice dinner, everything he loves, and it will 
be spoiled! ” cried Jean. 

“ Now, Jean, there’s a large majority here to enjoy 
it. If your father doesn’t turn up we’ll wish him well 
and eat his feast without him. There never was the 
least use in worrying over Bentley Wolcott,” inter¬ 
posed Mrs. Claudia Wolcott philosophically. 

“Well, what a way to have a birthday dinner!” 
cried Jean. 

Steve came back looking gloomy. “ He’s gone to 
Tidewater Centre, Jean,” he announced. “He was in 
the drug store on his way and said he was going there. 
So it’s no good waiting for him.” 

“ Oh, for pity’s sake ! ” cried Jean, tears in her eyes 
this time. 

“ Just the same when he was a boy ! ” remarked Mrs. 
Wolcott. “ Don’t marry an absent-minded man, Jean.” 

“ I don’t want to marry any kind of a man,” cried 


74 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Jean petulantly. “ No woman would forget how tired 
you were and how hard you’d tried, let alone forget¬ 
ting her birthday! ” 

“ It isn’t so much the absent mind as it is the absent 
body that makes this a fluke, Mrs. Wolcott,” laughed 
Roger, trying to be cheering. “ Come on, Jean; serve 
your dinner, and be charitable enough to be glad you’ve 
got a good one for us ; I’m ravenous! We’ll eat your 
father’s health and he’ll be along in time to join us; 
perhaps he’ll remember on the way and come back.” 

Jean shook her head dismally, but yielded to neces¬ 
sity. Helen, the three boys, Dorcas and she bore in 
the steaming viands, but their fragrance no longer was 
delicious to the disappointed hostess-cook. Here was 
where Rodney’s talents scored above Steve. He talked 
such a stream of clever nonsense that no one could 
help laughing, and, with her first few mouthfuls Jean 
felt better; she was tired and hungry. By the time 
dinner was over she could see how ridiculous the whole 
thing was and pledge her father in the coffee fairly 
cheerfully. 

Mr. Wolcott came hurrying in at the last crumb of 
dessert, breathless, contrite, but plainly enjoying him¬ 
self. 

“ My dear child, how can I make this up to you ? ” 
he said. “ When you were such a good child to try to 


JEAN THE HOUSEKEEPER 


75 


keep the day as your mother would do ! But I had a 
great idea occur to me, and the truth is it made me for¬ 
get all about day and dinner. I hurried off to Tide¬ 
water Centre to see Baxter, who would know if it was 
the solution of a difficulty that had balked me for 
weeks. He says it is ! Jean, that’s enough birthday 
joy ! Now, will you forgive your father, your dream¬ 
ing father, and give me my birthday dinner after all ? 
I’m certain it was good enough to make it better at a 
second serving than any other dinner could be ! ” 

“ Oh, yes, father ! I don’t see how I could punish 
you by making you go to bed dinnerless on your birth¬ 
day ! I don’t believe it is quite spoiled, though nothing 
can be as good as it was at first,” said Jean, while in 
duet with her Mr. Wolcott’s stepmother said : 

“ You are incorrigible, perfectly incorrigible, Bent¬ 
ley ; always will be.” 

“ Well, maybe it’s better this way,” cried Dorcas un¬ 
expectedly. “ It will be more like a banquet; it will 
take so long to serve it over again to papa. And I be¬ 
lieve I could eat a little more myself.” 


CHAPTER V 


jean’s opportunity 

“T’M just as busy as I can be this morning, Roger,” 
A said Jean as Roger turned in at the gate on the 
morning of Memorial Day. 

“ If you had lived in the crusading days and had 
been a man, you never would have been a Knight Hos¬ 
pitaller - Oh, that’s what comes of my trying to be 

clever! It’s hospitable I meant, so that neat little 
allusion doesn’t work out well.” Roger energetically 
thumped his head to suggest it was wooden. 

“ Besides which I’m a girl, a Hew England girl, born 
in the nineteenth century, so I seem to have missed 
being any kind of a knight by a wide margin,” cried 
Jean. “ I’ve no time to play, Roger, and I won’t ask 
you in. Hospitality is all very fine, but I can’t prac¬ 
tice all the virtues at once, and this morning I have lots 
to do.” 

“ It’s a holiday,” suggested Roger. 

Jean shook her head. “ Hot in the old Wolcott 
house, nor for the young Wolcott girl. I didn’t get 
through what I had to do yesterday, so it overlaps 
76 


JEAN’S OPPORTUNITY 


77 


into to-day. When I began housekeeping alone I 
thought it didn’t matter if I let some things go over 
till the next day, but I see there isn’t any next day. 
When it gets here it is to-day and stuck as full of 
its own work as a pin ball with pins. I’ve found 
out I come to grief if I don’t keep squared up as I 
go, so ‘Memorandum Day’ doesn’t count.this year 
as a holiday for Jean Wolcott.” 

44 Memorandum Day ? ” laughed Roger. 

“That’s what Rod told me old deaf Peter Woods 
called it yesterday; we were laughing over it last 
night,” explained Jean. 44 Roger, wouldn’t it be dread¬ 
ful if I had to strike my colors and get some one to do 
the cooking ? This is a secret I haven’t told any one 
but Helen, but I’m afraid I may have to give in. I 
don’t—I do not want to! But I get so tired, and when 
I’m tired I’m so stupid, and drop things so! ” 

Roger looked unutterable pity. 44 You poor little 
genius! But everybody is praising you to the nines. 
Mother says she thinks you are wonderful. It’s only 
you who say you’re stupid. You’ve held out a whole 
month.” 

44 Yes. Mother’s been gone a month,” agreed Jean 
sadly. 44 And she is better; she says she thinks she can 
truly say it is really being better, not merely rested. I try 
to keep in sight what Memorial Day might have been. 


78 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Isn’t it horrid, Roger, but such a silly little thing as 
aching feet makes it hard to remember that mother 
might have died ! You can be as splendid as you like 
when you’re rested, but when you’re tired it seems as 
if nothing in the whole world made much difference ! 
I don’t see how I can feel as if I didn’t care, sometimes, 
when I know all the time I do care so much.” 

“ That’s only because your mother is better and your 
tiredness is not. If your mother were failing you 
wouldn’t remember your aching muscles. All the more 
credit, plucky little Jean of Arc, to carry your banner 
when you’ve got dust in your eyes and don’t see it 
clearly,” Roger comforted her. 

“ That was a lovely speech, Roger! ” cried Jean with 
unflattering surprise. “ It was almost poetical. And 
true and kind ; thank you. You’re really very nice in¬ 
deed—when you are nice.” 

“ Jean, on the day of judgment you’ll never be 
blamed for having spoiled me with strong praise,” cried 
Roger with a shout of laughter at this grudging admis¬ 
sion, yet not minding the grudging since he saw that 
Jean was more pleased than she said by his tribute to 
her courage amid discouragement. “ Well, I came to 
take you out rowing, and maybe to try the Maid of 
Orleans , if you’d go. It’s the exact breeze for a cat- 
boat.” 


JEAN’S OPPORTUNITY 


79 


“ Indeed I can’t go,” said Jean, turning away with 
refreshed memory of all that awaited her. “ I do wish 
you wouldn’t call your boat that, Roger.” 

“ I’d like to know why not! ” protested Roger inno¬ 
cently. “ It isn’t your name; you’re not the Maid of 
Orleans. I don’t see that it is my fault if Jeanne 
d’ Arc and you had the same first name. I promised I 
wouldn’t name my boat the Jean , and did I ? ” 

Jean disdained to reply. It was pleasant to know 
that Roger thought there was no other girl in the world 
worth naming his boat for, but it was not pleasant to 
know that he knew that she knew he thought so. 
Jean never got as far as putting her feeling as to 
Roger Cathcart into form, but she was positive of one 
thing and that was that she 44 wouldn’t let him be 
silly.” 

At that moment a young man appeared around the 
corner of the house, a stranger who took off his hat and 
held it, as he presented himself in his perfect and 
palpably urban garments before the surprised Jean and 
Roger, who had not heard his coming. He addressed 
Jean, and his voice sounded like whipped cream that 
had not deserved its whipping; he still held his hat in 
his hand, deferentially. 

“ I beg your pardon,” he said, 44 but I tried in vain to 
get a response to my summons at the other door, so I 


80 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


came around. I am at loss how to open my appeal to 
you, except with the question, book-agent-like: Are 
you the lady of the house ? ” 

“ I suppose I am, now,” said Jean. “ Are you—did 
you say you were a book-” 

“ No, no, my dear young lady. I merely said that 
my question was their established form of address ; of 
any agent, for that matter,” interrupted the newcomer 
hastily. “ I am nothing so practical as an qgent. I 
am merely a sojourner on your beautiful coast. I want 
to stay here for some time, studying it. Not wholly 
from an artistic view-point, I may admit, but not with¬ 
out a large admixture of the artist’s unselfish love of 
nature with a business man’s harder headed interest. I 
was told that Mr. Bentley Wolcott lived here ; I think 
this can hardly be Mrs. Wolcott ? ” 

He glanced at Roger as if passingly estimating his 
chance of being Mr. Wolcott, and Jean said quickly, 
though she was bewildered by the stranger’s flow of 
words and elaborate manner: U 1 am Miss Wolcott; 
Mrs. Wolcott is away. Is there anything I can do in 
her stead ? ” 

“Miss Wolcott, if you are in authority over this at¬ 
tractive old house, so charmingly placed on the very 
brow of this cliff above the sea, then you can do that 
which, for the moment, I want above all things. You 


JEAN’S OPPORTUNITY 81 

can let me be an inmate of this house while I am in 
Tidewater.” 

The stranger offered Jean a card which he extracted 
from a red Russia leather case. She took it and read: 
“ Mr. Anthony Dillon.” 

She looked up, frowning in a puzzled way, and Roger, 
still lingering, fidgeted. 

“ Become an inmate of this house ? Do you mean 
board here ? ” she asked. 

“ Precisely. Now don’t say no,” Mr. Dillon remon¬ 
strated, anticipating the refusal that Jean’s lips were 
forming. “ I will promise not to be the slightest 
trouble. Needless to say I shall be only too grateful 
and appreciative if you let me come. Your own house¬ 
hold surely requires more elaborate meals than I want; 
bread and butter, coffee, fruit—I ask no more. I am 
quiet, though not stealthy in my movements ! You 
shall never be disturbed by my comings and goings, 
and my dear mother used to say that no girl was ever 
neater and more orderly in her room than was her 
second son Tony, the Anthony Dillon of that card. 
Miss Wolcott, be charitable and do not say me nay ! I 
have set my heart on coming here.” 

The look that he gave pretty young Jean implied 
that he was not blind to beauty other than the ocean’s. 
Roger scowled and Jean blushed, but the implied com- 


82 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


pliment in his glance did not attract Jean to him. She 
was sensible enough to know that he had no right even 
to imply a compliment, and she was still so young that 
flattery embarrassed her. She shook her head de¬ 
cidedly. 

“ I am sorry if you have set your heart on coming 
here, Mr. Dillon,” she said, “ for it is quite as impossible 
as if you had set your heart on going to Mars. Fancy 
my taking a boarder! ” She glanced at Roger with a 
smile. “ My mother is away and I am not succeeding 
well in filling her place. Besides, we never take 
boarders. There are a great many in the Tidewaters 
who do. There is a good hotel here and another at the 
Centre, though that one is not on the shore. And there 
are ever so many families who take boarders in the 
summer; you will easily find a place. But not in the 
old Wolcott house.” 

“ Well, it is hard luck to find exactly what you want 
and not be able to get it,” said Mr. Dillon with a sigh. 
“ I think I know resolution when I see it, and I don’t 
believe you are to be moved.” 

“ Not by pleading, nor by violence,” smiled Jean, re¬ 
lenting as she saw that the interview was ending. 
“This is Mr. Cathcart. He is going down the street; 
perhaps he will point out some of the boarding-places 
to you. I am sorry if you really fancy this house 


JEAN’S OPPORTUNITY 


83 


especially, Mr. Dillon, but I couldn’t possibly let any 
one board here.” 

“ Don’t be sorry, Miss Wolcott—thanks for it, never¬ 
theless. I am sorry enough for us both,” said Mr. 
Anthony Dillon. 

Jean rather admired the good nature with which he 
accepted his refusal, but Roger scowled again at his 
saying “ us both,” by which friendly coupling Roger 
fancied Mr. Dillon was enjoying the effect of acquaint¬ 
ance with Jean. It happened that Roger’s suspicious 
jealousy was on the wrong scent, and that something 
quite other than a desire to win pretty little Jean’s 
favor actuated Mr. Anthony Dillon, of whose motives 
Jean and Roger were to know more later. 

“ I’ll show you the way to the Tidewater Inn,” said 
Roger shortly. “ Good-bye, Jean. See you to-night, 
maybe. Are you ready, Mr. Dillon ? ” Roger waved 
his hand in a parting salute to Jean, Mr. Dillon bowed 
impressively, and the two young men walked away to¬ 
gether. 

Jean watched them out of sight. Mr. Dillon was not 
less than five years Roger’s elder, which placed him indef- 
initely beyond the pale of Jean’s understanding. To her 
sixteen years, twenty-five or six was young by compari¬ 
son only; a grown man was a grown man, and her sense 
of comradeship did not extend beyond Roger’s years. 


84 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


This Anthony Dillon was handsome, a trifle heavily 
built, a trifle overemphasized in every way, a little too 
carefully dressed, too elaborate mannered, too highly 
colored, yet there was something about him that, while 
she was conscious of being repelled by him herself, 
Jean was keen enough to see might be attractive to 
many. So she understood Rod’s enthusiasm, in part, 
when he came in late to dinner and launched into praise 
of the stranger. 

“ Met Roge down the street, near the hotel, with the 
dandiest chap ! ” he cried. “ Fellow from Boston, Mr. 
Dillon. Roge introduced me and he’s all right, treated 
me white, asked questions about the early settlement of 
the Tidewaters—this was after Roger went off. He’s 
quite a good deal older than Roger, but he doesn’t put 
on any side ; treated me as one man treats another.” 
Rodney swelled visibly. “ Awfully handsome chap, 
and has swell clothes. He’s going to stay in town a 
while, got a bad crush on the place. I told him it was 
all right, I supposed, but pretty slow for the year ’round. 
He said he’d met my sister. Where’d you meet him, 
sis?” 

“ There was a man named Dillon here this morning ; 
maybe it is he,” said Jean, conscious of a thorough dis¬ 
like for the stranger that she had not felt till she heard 
Rodney’s raptures over him and saw that he had played 


JEAN’S OPPORTUNITY 


85 


upon the handsome boy’s easily fostered conceit. “ He 
wanted to board here; gave me his card. His name 
was Anthony Dillon. Perhaps it’s the same one.” 

“ Surest thing you know! ” cried Rod. “ What did 
you tell him ? Wish you’d take him in; he would be 
a jolly chap to have around.” 

“ I told him we did not take boarders,” said Jean 
quietly. “ I think it was impertinent to go to a private 
house and ask to be taken in; the hotel is for that. 
But I don’t think I should want a stranger here now 
anyway, Rod.” 

“ Suppose not,” admitted Rod grudgingly. “ But 
he’s a peach all right. I thought he’d kill me with the 
things he said when the people came in from the ceme¬ 
tery. Those old Civil War G. A. R. men, hobbling 
along! Mr. Dillon said it stood for Grandfather 
Adam’s Rally—I thought I’d die ! ” 

“ It stands for Grand Army of the Republic, the Re¬ 
public those feeble old men gave their youth to save, 
and they are the remnant of the Army of the Potomac 
which Lincoln called for, and which came at his call! ” 
cried Jean springing to her feet, the poet alive in her, 
her eyes flashing, her cheeks reddened, forgetting 
fatigue in her enthusiasm and indignation. “ And you 
laughed when this Mr. Dillon made fun of the old 
G. A. R.! Rod, don’t you remember? It’s cheap to 


86 


HER DAUGHTER JEAR 


laugh at poor old men, and worse to make fun of old 
soldiers who fought for the Union, even if they do 
limp along with funny old whiskers and funny old 
faces ! They carry an old tattered flag, too ! I always 
think they are alike. That’s about the sort of man I 
thought that Mr. Dillon would be! Wolcotts were 
always patriots, Rodney ; in the Revolution and in the 
Civil War. Our Great-uncle William was with the 
Sixth Massachusetts in Baltimore when it went out; 
don’t you ever forget that, Rodney Wolcott.” 

“Say, Jean, don’t get eloquent,” said Rod lazily, be¬ 
cause he was annoyed, and because he was in the 
wrong. “ Funny if you can’t see a joke because you’re 
a patriot! If you don’t look out, Jean, you’ll get so 
there’s no fun in you! Mr. Dillon’s all right. I’m 
gone on him, but there’s no such luck as our knowing 
him. He’s a clever man, and we wouldn’t interest him 
long. But he was mighty nice to me. Isn’t it queer 
how a girl makes up her mind about any one right 
slap off and can’t reason about it ? ” 

“ Isn’t it queer how a boy makes up his mind just as 
quickly and won’t let any one have a different opin¬ 
ion ? ” retorted Jean. Upon which Rodney stalked 
away with dignity, having learned that in an encoun¬ 
ter of wits he never worsted Jean. 

That evening Jean sat on the steps with Steve, feel- 


JEAN’S OPPORTUNITY 


87 


mg vaguely dissatisfied. Her father had taken Dorcas 
for a holiday drive after supper to pay a call on Mrs. 
Claudia Wolcott. Rodney had gone out with the boys; 
Steve only remained with Jean in that silent compan¬ 
ionship which was Steve’s peculiar and comforting way 
of keeping her company. The feeling of a holiday that 
had brought no holiday pleasures was all around Jean, 
with its sense of restlessness and unsatisfied craving. 

Jean’s face was in her hands, her knees drawn up, 
her elbows on them, and she looked out to sea, watch¬ 
ing the revolving light in the farthest rock-founded 
lighthouse, not yet showing its full brilliance in the 
lingering light of the afterglow. 

“I think that I shall get along well in business, 
Jean,” said Steve soberly, out of a protracted silence. 
“ If I do I shall live right here and you will live with 
me and I shall get you everything you want. I shall 
buy books enough to fill the biggest parlor, set up on 
shelves all round it, and you will be a great poet and 
write famous stories because you won’t have one thing 
to bother you, or keep you from it.” 

“ Steve, you are the nicest boy in all the world ! ” 
cried Jean with gratitude as genuine as if this some¬ 
what uncertain future were assured. “ How could you 
guess I was thinking of a story all day and trying not 
to fret because I couldn’t write it ? ” 


88 


HER DAUGHTER JEAR 


“ I didn’t guess it,” said Steve truthfully, “ but you 
always are wishing you could write stories or some¬ 
thing. I’m going to make it up to you, for you do the 
best you can for us. I’m pretty sure I can be a little 
rich, because books say it’s the pokey ones that get 
there. My teacher made us write a kind of sermon on 
the hare and the tortoise the other day.” 

“You’re not pokey, Steve; you’re only steady— 
and you’re a duck ! ” cried Jean warmly. 

“ You are the flower of this family,” said Steve, still 
gravely. “ I heard Mrs. Cathcart say so the other day, 
and it’s true.” 

“ I’m the flour—f-l-o-u-r—of the family lately ! ” 
laughed Jean, but she could not help showing her 
pleasure. “ Here come Helen and Roger; Steve, 
they’re going to ask us rowing ! ” 

“ You,” amended Steve, which proved to be the 
case, but Steve was included in the invitation after¬ 
ward, and they all four sallied forth, leaving the key 
of the house with the next door neighbor, after a time- 
honored custom. 

There was a young moon and the sea was still. It 
was not a night to try the Maid of Orleans , which was 
the fastest catboat in the Tidewater harbor, but it was 
an ideal night for rowing. Helen and Roger were to 
pull going out, Steve and Roger coming back; it 


JEAN’S OPPORTUNITY 89 

was taken for granted that Jean needed rest—as indeed 
she did. 

All the weariness of spirit, the weariness of body, a 
vague uneasiness that Rod gave her, the nervous irrita¬ 
tion of Dorcas’ ceaseless pranks, the abiding, though 
lessening anxiety for her mother, slipped off Jean’s 
shoulders into the depths of the sleeping Atlantic. 
The moon, six days old, made a delicate glimmer of 
light for them to look back on at their starting. One 
by one the stars came out; the east was soon studded 
with them. 

“ Sing, Jean,” ordered Roger, and Jean sang will¬ 
ingly. Her voice was not the strongest, but it was 
perfectly true, and its sweetness was rare, with a 
pathetic quality that made it a pensive delight to listen 
to it. She was entirely untaught, but her repertory 
was long, for both her father and her mother loved 
music, and sang to their children from the first days of 
their lives. 

“ Could we all sing something ? ” asked Helen; she 
spoke doubtfully, for her voice was not her best gift, 
but she dearly loved to sing. 

“ Why not ? Steve’s a regular warbler,” said Roger. 

“ Only you can’t sing quite smoothly while you’re 
rowing; it jerks like grunts often,” said Steve. 

“ Why not drift for a few moments ? ” suggested 


90 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Jean. “ Hold the boat still, Roger and Steve, and let’s 
sing together out here.” 

“ Did you know Rod had gone out with that Mr. 
Dillon ? ” asked Roger. “ They may think we’re sere¬ 
nading them.” 

“ Or they might recognize us and come up. We’ll 
row slowly, then, and sing the best we can,” said Jean. 
“I do wish Rod weren’t so easily taken with 
strangers! ” 

“ You didn’t like him, either?” cried Roger. “ I 
couldn’t stand him. That was your chance to take 
a boarder. Opportunity knocks at your door but 
once, Jean! ” 

“ I don’t believe that’s true, but if Mr. Dillon is 
opportunity I’d rather it would knock somewhere else 
the next time. Don’t waste time; Steve and I must be 
back soon. Let’s sing—what, Stevie ? ” 

“ All the patriotic songs, and then 4 Crossing the 
Bar,’ because it is Memorial Day,” said Steve promptly. 

“ Stephen dear! You are the poet of the family, 
not I! ” cried Jean. The silent, steady little boy was 
always a surprise to them all. 

Steve’s programme was carried out, and when the last 
note of “ Crossing the Bar ” sank into quiet over the 
placid sea no one felt like speaking. They rowed gently 
in, and disembarked in the damp dusk of the May night. 


CHAPTEK VI 


jean’s misgivings 


u * I ^HERE’S no such thing as plain cooking,” de- 

JL dared Jean. “ There is plain food, but cooking, 
the plainest of it, is not a plain thing to do; it’s 
complicated.” 

She punctuated this statement by breathing on the 
forefinger of her left hand, holding it up and turning 
it around and around to cool the poor finger’s scalded 
tip. She was sitting on the top step facing the sea, but 
the pleasant breeze from the ocean did not lessen the 
crimson brightness of her finger. 

Helen, beside her, with an arm over Jean’s shoulder, 
laughed, yet drew her closer with a sympathetic 
pressure. 

“Has it been a hard day, Jean dearest?” she asked. 
“ Why didn’t you send for me ? And how did you get 
such a burn ? ” 

“Three things were burning or boiling over at 
once; I moved the teakettle back too quickly to get 
at a saucepan and the steam scalded my finger—so 
then there was four things overdone!” said Jean. 

91 


92 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ As to sending for you, Nell, if I don’t begin to 
depend on myself after more than a month of house¬ 
keeping, when shall I learn to go alone? I should 
dearly like to send for you once and for all, have you 
move into this house for the summer.” 

“ You poor genius! ” cried Helen. “ It is Pegasus in 
harness. It is pretty hard to turn such a complete 
somersault and have such a burden on your hands as a 
family, all at once.” 

Jean nodded. “ On burnt hands at that! ” she said. 
“ Really, the trouble this time was that it was Pegasus 
in harness, and the traces were loose. I didn’t mean to 
relapse into my old ways once while mother was gone, 
but when she went away I thought of a fine title for a 
poem and it’s been buzzing around in my head ever 
since. It was the Accolade of Courage—isn’t that 
great ? ” 

“ I—yes. What does it mean ? ” asked Helen. 

Jean laughed. “ What do you mean by saying yes if 
you don’t know ? ” she asked. “ An accolade is the tap 
on the shoulder the knight receives when he is made a 
knight. The king gives him a tap with his sword and 
says: ‘ Rise up, Sir Knight! ’ That’s an accolade. 
Don’t you see ? Courage gives some one the tap and 
makes him a knight; he would be only an ordinary man 
before that, but, after Courage gives him the accolade, 


JEAN’S MISGIVINGS 


93 


he is her knight, ready to do great deeds. I’m crazy 
about the idea. To-day it got hold of me so that I 
couldn’t help trying to fit it out with rhymes while I 
was at work. It was a failure both ways, poem and 
cooking ! I do believe I’ll be worse than ever, if I don’t 
look out! My rhyming will get in the way of cook¬ 
ing, and my cooking get in the way of rhyming, and 
then I shall be like those fashion book paper dolls we 
used to make—the head of one figure pasted on the 
body of another! It was too ridiculous to-day, 
Helen ! ” Jean’s eyes danced and her voice grew cheer¬ 
ful. “ I began the poem: 4 Courage, the king, hath 
touched me with his sword.’ That was not so awful, 
but then I wanted to say: 4 And bade me knead my 
biscuits on the board.’ To save my life I couldn’t think 
of a sensible second line ! Trying to get one made me 
burn my potatoes and cook the heads off my asparagus. 
I was so disgusted and tired when I got through ! I 
don’t believe I shall ever be thoroughly practical and 
reliable, like you.” 

44 You won’t ever be a plodder, like me,” said Helen 
cheerfully. 44 We wouldn’t want you to be. You will 
accomplish ever so much more in your life than I shall 
in mine. All you’ve got to do is to add a little home- 
spun to your cloth-of-gold.” 

44 Mercy me, Helen, if I am learning housekeeping, 


94 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


you are getting poetical! Roger Cathcart thinks I’d 
be much nicer if I were a plodder. I can’t quite like 
Roger, though he is the nicest boy I know, as long as 
he is so horrid about my wanting to write.” And 
Jean frowned at her scalded forefinger in Roger’s stead. 

Helen laughed her low, contented laugh. “ It is 
something to see that he’s the nicest boy you know. 
That ought to give him comfort,” she said slyly. 
“ What else was hard for you to-day, Jeannie ? ” 

“ The day,” said Jean promptly. “ I don’t know 
what; it was one of those crooked days. Everything 
was askew, and Dorcas has had one long witch spell 
from its beginning—the witchiest! I couldn’t do a 
thing with her. She not only wouldn’t help me, but 
she has been in more mischief than you’d believe even 
she could invent in one day. No wonder our blessed 
mother broke down ! Dorcas alone was enough to have 
worn her out, and there are all the rest of us—and I, 
who might have helped her, was as blind as a chopping 
block to her weariness! When I think of it I’m glad I 
scalded that finger ! ” 

“ But she is getting better, and it is you who are giv¬ 
ing her back her health, so you mustn’t remember that 
you woke up slowly,” said Helen quickly. 

“ I was wondering if you weren’t going to include 
yourself among mother’s trials,” said a voice behind 


JEAN’S MISGIVINGS 


95 


them, and the girls faced around with a jump to see 
handsome Rodney in the hammock back of them, one 
foot on the floor, his arms over his head, as he held the 
hammock rope in both hands and lightly bounced him¬ 
self as he swung. 

“I included us all, Rod,” said Jean. “All of us 
except Steve ; I think he has never for a moment been 
anything but a help and comfort to mother.” 

“ Steve runs along like a trolley car on a track,” said 
Rod somewhat scornfully. 

“ And it’s not a little thing to run steadily over a 
straight track day after day,” said Jean emphatically. 
“ Steve isn’t thirteen yet, but if he goes on all his life 
like the trolley car you call him, being so reliable, so 
upright, so sensible, he’s going to be the best of the 
W olcott family, Rodney, though you do flatter your¬ 
self you’re more brilliant than he is. There’s one thing; 
I can appreciate Steve if I am up in the clouds, as you 
always said I was. He’s worth a dozen of you and me.” 

“ Oh, Steve is one of the good boys ! ” said Rod with 
good-natured indifference. “ He’ll never set the world 
afire. I know a fellow that will, though. Steve the 
Steady isn’t interesting, but this one is, and it isn’t be¬ 
cause he’s older, either. I took to him from the start, 
and I guess he took to me. He says he is coming to 
see me. He’s been around a lot. If you hang around 


96 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


when he comes, Jean, you’ll hear talk that is something 
different from the Tidewater brand.” 

“ Who is he ? ” demanded Jean, swinging around on 
the step the better to see Rod, who also sat up and 
pulled down the belt that held his becoming flannel 
shirt in place. It was funny to see the would-be man¬ 
liness struggling with the boyish importance of his fif¬ 
teen years, as Rod tried to assume an air of equality 
with his new acquaintance as a man of the world. 
Plainly he was greatly flattered by this new friendship. 

“His name is Anthony Dillon,” said Rod with a 
swagger. 

“ That’s what I thought! Why, Rod, that man must 
be twenty-six years old ; he can’t care about you. Why 
do you suppose he bothers with a boy like you ? And 
he wanted to come here to board. I wonder what he 
is doing in Tidewater ! ” said Jean thoughtfully. 

Before Rod, crimson with offended vanity, could re¬ 
ply Mr. Wolcott appeared in the doorway. His shoul¬ 
ders stooped slightly, there was a curious mixture of 
enthusiasm and dreamy aloofness in his handsome face. 
Rod was like him, but in addition to his youth Rod’s 
face was full of eagerness and his eyes sparkled with a 
fire that had never flashed in his father’s dreamy eyes 
at fifteen. 

“Now, now, Jean daughter,” Mr. Wolcott expos- 


JEAN'S MISGIVINGS 


97 


tulated gently, “you must not suspect your fellow man 
without reason. Ten years, or so, is not a discrepancy 
fatal to friendship. I find our Rodney quite interest¬ 
ing enough to account for this stranger’s sudden fancy. 
If he is interesting, if he has new ideas to impart to us, 
Rodney, your friend will be most welcome to us all.” 

“ He is mighty interesting, father—to me,” said Rod, 
with his most manly air. “ Probably he didn’t spout 
poetry to Jean when he asked to come here to board. 
I guess he likes me all right. He’ll be up ’most any 
night and I told him I’d take him out to the light 
some night, in the Nixie. He has enough new ideas, 
if that’s all. Pretty important ones, I think. He’s 
been telling me that we’ve got a lot of money tied 
up in this old place. He says that unless we are very 
wealthy, or very sentimental, he doesn’t see why we 
live in this house, when a site like this, on the shore, is 
worth good money.” 

“ What impertinence! ” cried Jean, her eyes flashing. 
“ That is precisely like the way he came and asked me to 
take him into this same old house to board! I should 
really like to know why he thinks the Wolcotts need 
his advice—or himself.” 

“The Wolcotts need money, Miss Jean,” said Rod. 
“ If you knew more about the world you’d know that 
men who see a good thing and are up to something in 


98 


HEE DAUGHTEE JEAN 


a business way are ready to give another fellow points. 
Tony Dillon told me himself that he hated to see such 
an opportunity go to waste, even if it didn’t affect him. 
He saw I’d have the wit to catch on when he pointed 
it out to me.” 

“ Tony Dillon! ” cried Jean, with an underscore 
mark in her voice. “ Did he tell you to call him by a 
nickname ? Eod, I haven’t seen much of the world, 
nor of business men, but I didn’t like that man, and I 
don’t trust him. How queer it is for him to jump into 
intimacy and give advice about our affairs—to a boy 
like you! ” 

Mr. Wolcott spoke in his mild voice, forestalling 
Rod’s angry retort. “We are not reduced to selling 
our home, my boy, and we need no more money than 
we have,” he said. “But if we did need more we 
should still live calmly on in our old house, knowing 
that when I have perfected my steering apparatus for 
air-ships—it is bound to succeed, children! I have lived 
too long by the sea, and my fathers have lived by it too 
long before me, not to understand the currents of the 
winds and what shall rule them. When this steering 
apparatus is perfected we shall be wealthy beyond the 
dreams of avarice, beyond the riches of the freighted 
galleons which that hungry Atlantic has swallowed up.” 

Eod made a sound that suggested filial irreverence, 


JEAN’S MISGIVINGS 


99 


but Jean spread her tired hands on her knees and 
looked sadly out on the ocean over which the moon was 
rising, nearly full. It seemed to her that the Wol¬ 
cotts could easily use more wealth than they had, and 
her father’s dreams oppressed her. They were like a 
mirage; they would never lead to the haven, of that 
she was convinced. The light out beyond on the 
rocks flashed into being, flickered, grew, sent out a 
long, broad stream of light, diminished and disap¬ 
peared. It was like that, Jean thought, these hopes 
of her gentle, visionary father. The steering appa¬ 
ratus for air-ships would never guide home the Wol¬ 
cotts’ treasure ships. 

“ Well, sir, you’ll see Mr. Dillon before many moons ; 
he’s likely to turn up any time, and you’ll see if he 
isn’t just what I say he is; maybe you’ll be interested 
in what he has to say,” Rod was saying, when a shrill 
shout, half frightened, half triumphant, wholly mis¬ 
chievous, rang out and Jean sprang to her feet. 

“ Now what has Dorcas done ? ” she cried. “ I ought 
not to have left her to herself, not in the mood she’s 
been in all day, but I was so tired ! Dorcas, Dorcas, 
where are you ? ” 

“ Look for me! ” cried the voice shrilly, but Jean had 
no time to obey, for Steve came out, book in hand, as 
usual, and enlightened her. 


100 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Dorcas is out on the bowsprit, Jean. Rod, come see 
if you can get her down,” he said. 

“ Out on the bowsprit! ” echoed Jean, pale to her 
lips, while Rod dashed over the porch-rail with an angry 
exclamation. 

They all flew around the house and stood looking up. 
Some bygone Wolcott, stranded ashore after a seafar¬ 
ing life, had rigged out on the side of the house a bow¬ 
sprit and a figurehead from a derelict of distant seas. 
It stood out under the eaves like a gargoyle, fantas¬ 
tically companionable, though entirely inaccessible to all 
the succeeding Wolcott children who had played under 
its shadow. Now Dorcas, small and elfin, with her 
black eyes snapping in the half-light, sat out on this 
bowsprit, upon which she had lowered herself from a 
perilous attic slant, singing, like a witch on a broom¬ 
stick, at the top of her shrill voice. 

“ Dorcas, how could you! ” cried Jean, terror-stricken, 
yet indignant. 

“ My dear, can you get down safely ? ” asked Dorcas’ 
mild father. 

“ You’ll have to get a ladder, Rod; you’ll have to 
get a ladder! You can’t get me down without a lad¬ 
der,” cried Dorcas gleefully. 

“ Not on your life! ” growled Rod. “ If you got 
yourself into such a scrape you’d better get out of it 


JEAN’S MISGIVINGS 


101 


the same way. Can you crawl back? No ladder 
would reach you anyway.” 

“ No, sir; I can’t crawl back,” cried Dorcas. “ Then 
call out the fire department! I hoped our ladder 
would be too short! Call out the fire department! 
My, what fun ! ” 

“ You crawl back, miss,” ordered Rodney, while Jean, 
trembling, moaned: 

“ No, no, Rod, how could she ? Don’t try, Dorcas ! 
Oh, Dorcas, Dorcas, why have you done this ? ” 

“ Because I wanted to be a gargoyle, Jean. I 
couldn’t crawl back, Rod. It was easy enough to get 
out here, but I couldn’t turn around, and I can’t hitch 
backward. Do, please, call out the fire department. 
Call all the Tidewater firemen,” shrieked Dorcas, wav¬ 
ing her arms in ecstasy while she held on to the bow¬ 
sprit with her knees and Jean and Helen covered their 
eyes, cowering low from the sight of the witch-child’s 
instantaneous destruction. 

Just then Steve came back dragging a mattress. It 
was one from his own single bed, and, as he gravely 
spread it underneath the bowsprit, it looked not much 
wider than Dorcas’ perch. 

“ I’m sorry it is so narrow,” Steve panted apologet¬ 
ically, “ but I couldn’t handle a full-sized one. If Dor¬ 
cas can drop straight down she’ll land on it.” 


102 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Jean laughed hysterically. “ Rod, we must do some¬ 
thing,” she began, but, before she could suggest what 
the something should be, Mr. Dillon appeared on the 
scene. 

“ Is there an eclipse to-night, or are all you good 
people star-gazing ? ” he asked. “ Has there 4 a new 
planet swum into your ken ’ ? ” 

Jean turned with a swift surprise and pleasure that, 
characteristically, made her forget Dorcas’ plight for 
an instant. 

44 Why, that’s Keats ! ” she cried, involuntarily re¬ 
lenting to the repellent stranger who knew the poet. 
44 No, indeed, we are not star-gazing. My little sister 
has crawled out on that bowsprit on the side of the 
house and we are wondering how to rescue her.” 

44 A bowsprit on the side of the house ? ” echoed Mr. 
Dillon, looking up. 44 By all that’s wonderful! This 
is a quaintly attractive old mansion. I wish I could 
paint that extraordinary efflorescence of its wall, with 
that eerie little figure clinging to it! But perhaps you 
would rather I would get her down than paint her ? ” 

44 Oh, do you think you could ? ” cried Jean. 

44 Either one,” laughed Mr. Dillon. 44 1 was not a 
bad athlete in college and that isn’t much of a feat. 
May I go up through the house and get out on the bow¬ 
sprit the way that child did ? It will bear, of course ? ” 


JEAN’S MISGIVINGS 


103 


“It may be rotted,” hesitated Jean, but her father 
said: 

“ Nonsense, Jean ! That timber is made for worse 
weather and greater strain than it has endured for 
the seventy odd years it has faced the Atlantic on 
our wall. I shall be grateful if you will rescue that 
reckless child,” he added to Mr. Dillon. “ Are you my 
boy Rodney’s new friend ? ” 

“ Yes, sir. I will be introduced after I have caught 
that young gull of yours,” laughed Anthony Dillon, 
responding to Rodney’s caressing slap on the shoulder 
by putting an arm across the boy’s shoulder and follow¬ 
ing his lead into the house. 

In a few moments he appeared, cautiously sliding 
down the roof slant and working his way out to Dor¬ 
cas. He lay on the bowsprit at full length, winding 
around it his stocking-clad feet from which he had dis¬ 
carded his shoes, holding himself with one hand. Then 
with the other hand he seized Dorcas, considerably sub¬ 
dued and frightened now, firmly by the arm. With no 
little difficulty he persuaded her to trust herself to that 
hand, while Jean and Helen hid their eyes. When 
Dorcas at last let go her clinging hold of the bowsprit 
Anthony Dillon lowered her, shrieking with fright and 
struggling wildly, into her father’s waiting arms. Then 
he crawled backward to the house, crept up the slip- 


104 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


pery shingles and reappeared, smiling and careless, 
among the group below. 

Rod went wild with enthusiasm over the performance. 
Mr. Wolcott was hardly less enthusiastic. Steve soberly 
accorded the stranger an equal admiration. Helen with 
difficulty kept her enthusiasm within the bounds of con¬ 
vention and Jean could not well withhold a cordiality 
toward Dorcas’ rescuer which, even then, she gave 
reluctantly. But Dorcas, and his acquaintance with 
Keats combined, were strong credentials for the new¬ 
comer. Jean felt that she was unjust and exerted her¬ 
self to make a visit pleasant which had begun so un¬ 
usually. 

Dorcas went to bed in disgrace; her escapade had 
not turned her into the heroine she had expected to ap¬ 
pear. The rest of the family disposed themselves on 
the porch to enjoy the moonlight on the ocean. 

“ Your son, this jolly young chum of mine,” began 
Anthony Dillon, turning to Mr. Wolcott, “ tells me that 
you are perfecting an era-making invention. May I 
hear about it ? I’m awfully interested in aeronautics 
and aeronauts ; have been since I was a boy,—though 
then I used to call them argonauts.” 

“ Did you ? ” cried Rod delighted. “ Honest truth, I 
don’t believe it’s two years since I thought the argonauts 
were—were—oh, the other ones.” 


JEAN’S MISGIVINGS 


105 


“ Go slow, Bod ; you haven’t got your bearings yet! ” 
laughed Anthony Dillon. 

“ I’ll gladly explain my ideas to you, Mr. Dillon,” 
said Mr. Wolcott eagerly. “ I rarely find a sympathetic 
listener. I mean, first of all, to confer an incalculable 
benefit upon the race, but, incidentally, I shall make 
the fortune of my family.” 

“ As to that,” said Dillon, with a little laugh and a 
slight shake of the head, “permit me to doubt, Mr. 
Wolcott. No great invention, at least none that is as 
epoch-making as I suppose yours to be, often makes a 
fortune for its inventor. You must work for higher 
ends than that. If it is a question of fortune-making I 
think I can be of more use to you than the invention. 
I have come down here with an idea in my pocket that 
would be worth thousands to a man situated as you are 
here.” He waved a hand lightly toward the sea. 
“ But I’m not here to divulge my schemes till I have 
found the right man to talk to about them. In the 
meantime, may I hear about the great air rudder ? ” 

Mr. Wolcott turned to him with his childlike smile ir¬ 
radiating his face and launched into a description of his 
absorbing invention. Loving it as one of his own chil¬ 
dren, it was plain that his love for it overflowed upon 
this young man, who was identifying himself with the 
inventor, listening with respectful attention and with 


106 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


either genuine or well-feigned enthusiasm to the details 
Mr. Wolcott eagerly poured forth. 

Jean’s heart sank; her distrust returned with in¬ 
crease. The hint of Anthony Dillon’s having come to 
Tidewater with a money-making scheme in mind 
aroused it, strengthened it. Jean was very young, a 
dreamer, too, but her instincts were quick and accurate; 
she felt people, rarely with a wrong feeling for their 
qualities. How easily this man had won Rod, partly 
through the boy’s vanity, partly through an honest 
boyish admiration which his charm had awakened! 
And quite as easily he could win her simple-hearted 
father, steer himself straight into his innermost regard 
by the power of the new invention. 

Jean “ wished that he wouldn’t; ” over and over she 
restlessly said to herself, listening to the steady flow of 
talk, watching the delightful manners of the stranger 
toward her father : “ I wish he wouldn’t, oh, I wish he 
wouldn’t! ” 

To add to her discomfort Roger Cathcart came down 
the street, plainly coming to join the Wolcotts on the 
porch. He saw Anthony Dillon there and went on, 
raising his hat, but not pausing. 

And just as he passed Anthony Dillon interrupted 
the conversation long enough to lean toward Jean, with 
his winning smile and say: “ When is the pretty lady 


JEAN’S MISGIVINGS 


107 


of the house going to break her silence ? Guernsey's 
Magazine came to-day with a lovely poem of hers in it. 
I wish she would help us talk over the great invention 
that is to control the winds on which her fancy wrought, 
as no machine can, in that poem, 4 The Eacing Waves.’ ” 

There was small comfort to Jean in knowing that 
this over-elaborate flattery made her answer, like a 
sulky child: 44 I don’t know a thing about machinery 
and that isn’t poetry, only rhymes.” 

For Roger had seen Anthony Dillon’s honeyed smile 
and had gone on with a bow. He probably thought 
that Jean was letting Dillon 44 get around her ” as he 
had Rod, and this after her avowed distrust of him ! 

44 1 wish we had thought of cutting down the bow¬ 
sprit ! ” she said to herself, vindictively. 44 1 wonder 
what he means by coming here and being butter- 
smooth and useful, anyway ! ” 


CHAPTER YII 


jean’s present 

J EAN sang about her morning tasks. There were 
several reasons for singing. One was that she had 
learned to perform these tasks with greater ease and 
better results. Another reason was that Dorcas was 
subdued—that is subdued for Dorcas !—since her adven¬ 
ture on the bowsprit, and was helpful as Dorcas could 
be when her activity turned to something other than 
pranks. But the best of the reasons was that the day 
before a letter had come from the dear mother on the 
brow of Mount Horsford telling Jean such good news 
that all the face of the earth and the sea was trans¬ 
figured and transformed by it. 

“ I am worlds better,” Mrs. Wolcott wrote. “ The 
doctor here says that our own Dr. Blaisdell and the 
specialist made a mistake natural to have been made 
when I was so exhausted as I was when I left home : 
there is no established disease. He says that I shall go 
home sooner than we dared hope I might, and go home 
sound and well, owing to the rest and treatment which 
108 


JEAN’S PRESENT 


109 


my dear, brave, devoted girl is making possible for me. 
I am living out-of-doors in the sunshine and dry moun¬ 
tain air and feeling life flow back to my veins hour by 
hour.” 

Jean carried this letter in her bosom. Her song 
sprang from it as from a fountain of unutterable joy. 

Besides all this it was June, June on shore with birds 
in full song, and with fresh verdure and hurrying, 
thronging blossoms ; June out over the sea, lying shin¬ 
ing in blue and green and white rippling laughter, 
spread out under the full June of the cloudless sky 
above it. 

These were reasons enough for singing, and Jean 
sang happily from kitchen to pantry and back again, 
stepping out-of-doors for a moment occasionally to get 
more intimately into it all and to interrupt Funny and 
Penny in their game of hide-and-seek around a syringa 
bush, by squeezing first one then the other, impar¬ 
tially. No one could have guessed that this was 
Jean, the pale poet of two months ago, who had passed 
her days on her sofa, vaguely dreaming in rhymes of 
Life and Duty in the abstract, but with no part in the 
actualities of either. 

Yet—and here was still another reason for singing— 
the day before Jean had managed to finish a little story 
which her own judgment, as well as Helen’s enthu- 


110 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


siasm, told her was the best, most promising bit of 
writing that she had ever done. Was it possible that 
her sacrifice of herself was to awaken in her, and give 
into her hands for her reward a new self, her best, 
cleverest self ? That as she grew more womanly, more 
self-forgetful, her talent would strengthen? If that 
were so, then Roger was not such a dull boy after all; 
he would have been right all along ! 

Ah, Roger ! The thought of him checked the song. 
He rarely came to see Jean now that Anthony Dillon 
had become, as he had become, a frequent visitor to 
the old Wolcott house. Jean knew that Roger thought 
that she, as well as Rod, had adopted the young man 
as a friend. Well, if Roger wanted to “ think things,” 
Jean did not care, so she told herself. There was no 
reason why she should not alter her mind about Mr. 
Dillon if she found that she had been mistaken, but 
the truth was she had done anything but alter her 
mind: she was almost ashamed to dislike him so heartily 
without better ground for doing so. In any case, he 
was much too old to be her friend; ten years older 
than she was! She was only a year older than Rod, 
and if Mr. Dillon were too old to be Rod’s friend, he 
was too old to be hers. 

Jean told herself again that she did not care; “if 
Roger Cathcart wanted to be silly let him! ” But we 


JEAN’S PRESENT 


111 


do not have to announce our indifference loudly to our¬ 
selves ; when we do thus announce it it is rarely indif¬ 
ference, and, somehow, Jean’s song ceased when she 
remembered that Roger was not neighborly now. Of 
course, if one has been friendly to a person from Third 
Reader days, she cannot be wholly indifferent to the 
temperature of that friendship’s thermometer. It is 
nicer to have it go up than to have it drop to frostiness, 
say what one will. 

But the day was June’s perfection and Jean’s song 
welled up again from that warming letter next her 
heart after scarcely five minutes devoted to Roger’s 
mood. She was singing at the top of her silvery young 
voice when Mrs. Claudia Wolcott came in at the side 
door, trying to veil the pleasure in her eyes at finding 
the once dreamy Jean busy, and singing about her tasks. 

“ Good-morning, Jean,” she said. And Jean faced 
about with a surprised jump and waved her broom in 
greeting before she had time to recall that Mrs. Claudia 
was always treated with respectful deference. How¬ 
ever, the salutation plainly did not displease her. “ Is 
that a strawberry shortcake ? Who taught you to 
make it?” demanded Mrs. Wolcott, surveying with un¬ 
disguised approval a model shortcake, cooling and 
scenting the air on a side table. 

“Mrs. Cathcart,” replied Jean. “I’m so proud of 


112 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


that cake, Step-grand, dear, that I can feel myself 
swelling, just as it did in the oven, every time I look 
at it! When I get into straits that I can’t work my 
way out of I run over to Mrs. Cathcart—or else to 
Helen Lumley’s—and get pulled out. Mrs. Cathcart 
has been just as good as she can be; there’s nobody 
like Mrs. Cathcart! ” 

“Well, nobody else is Roger Cathcart’s mother!” 
retorted Mrs. Claudia dryly, but with a twinkle that 
made Jean laugh, though she was provoked to feel 
her own furious blush. “ Now, never mind, child ! 
Of course I know that has nothing to do with your ap¬ 
preciation of Mrs. Cathcart; ‘ you love her for herself, 
not because of that rather fine boy of hers ! ’ I know ! 
Mrs. Cathcart is a good woman but there are other good 
women. I am going to see one now, stopped in on my 
way, and that is old Betsy Drummond. If I am half as 
good as she is when I’m deaf, and nearly blind, and more 
than half crippled by rheumatism, I shall be as surprised 
as I am thankful. Though I’d have to have some one 
tell me if it was so; old Betsy has no suspicion that 
she is one of the best reasons an angel could find for 
sparing the Tidewaters, if they were to be destroyed^ 
like Sodom and Gomorrah. I must go right along. 
The reason I came in was to tell you that you were to 
have a Fourth of July present.” 


JEAN’S PRESENT 


113 


“ A Fourth of- I never heard of giving presents 

on that day! Why, Step-grand ? ” asked Jean. 

“ Why what ? Why haven’t you heard of Fourth of 
July presents ? Or why am I giving you one ? Be¬ 
cause it is too long to wait for either Christmas or your 
birthday, and the Fourth of July happens to be the day 
you need this particular gift. In fact you need it then 
so much that you have to have it before ; it is coming 
to-night,” said Mrs. Claudia Wolcott, plainly enjoying 
Jean’s wonder, for she was not a person who gave many 
presents. 

“ It’s exciting, Step-grand,” said Jean. “ I’m grate¬ 
ful, but I’m so curious I can’t feel it! Won’t you tell 
me about it ? ” 

Mrs. Wolcott laughed; she liked Jean’s queer little 
ways of expressing herself. “ I’m not going to tell you 
much. It’s something useful, very useful. I have de¬ 
cided that you have proved yourself and should not be 
allowed to overdo it. You’ve been a good girl, Jean, a 
brave, unselfish, uncomplaining girl, and I’m proud of 
you.” 

“ Why, Step-grand ! ” cried Jean, her eyes filling with 
happy tears, for nothing could have been more unex¬ 
pected than this commendation from this source. “I’m 
—I’m grateful for that, anyway! ” 

“ It’s easy enough to set out with fine resolutions,” 


114 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


nodded Mrs. Wolcott. “ But it’s another thing to per¬ 
severe. I should have expected you to leap to save 
your mother, and take hold of almost anything, rather 
than let her die. But housework is not inspiring; it’s 
dull, tiresome repetition, and you never had done much 
of it. I am delighted with the way you’ve persisted, 
and not flagged when the first enthusiasm was over, 
and I especially like the way you’ve kept on, uncom¬ 
plainingly ; I’m not fond of a whiner. So I’m going 
to give you a present. It will spare you hard work and 
heal your hands.” She glanced at Jean’s roughened 
hands with a look so full of sympathetic understanding 
of what the sacrifice of their pretty whiteness meant to 
a girl, that Jean felt as if she had never seen her “ Step- 
grand ” before. “ If you don’t want the gift after your 
mother comes home, you may send it to some one else, 
but I’d like to have you keep it,” added Mrs. Wolcott. 

“ No fear of my not keeping anything you give me 
so beautifully, dear Step-grand ! ” cried Jean. “I’d love 
it, if only that you gave it to me because you thought 
I had not quite failed. I’ve been awfully discouraged 
sometimes. But I thought I’d better not think I was ! 
I’ve found out there’s a lot in treating yourself like 
company, and not pretending to see the mistakes you 
make. I make believe, or I couldn’t get on. When 
I’m tired to death I make myself dance, then I know I 


JEAN’S PRESENT 


115 


can’t be tired, or else I wouldn’t be likely to dance all 
alone in the kitchen ! And when I make horrid, awk¬ 
ward, foolish blunders I make believe I am just acting 
the part of an awkward green maid! And when I get 
so blue I’m perfectly soaked in indigo—only I’m 
never like that, now mother is really better!—I 
sing and whistle a little jingle I made up. It isn’t a 
great poem, but it does me good, and the tune is just a 
happy little up and down tune. There’s a four line 
chorus; like this : 

u Come, now, Polly, Polly, Polly, 

It is folly, folly, folly, 

To pretend you’re melancholy, 

When all’s jolly, jolly, jolly. 

Isn’t that ridiculous ? But you’d be surprised to see 
how it held me up—like a life-preserver! ” Jean amazed 
herself by pouring out this confidence to her formidable 
step-grandmother, but the warmth in her eyes led the 
girl on ; she was conscious of a degree of sympathy and 
affection toward her in Mrs. Wolcott that was as de¬ 
lightful as it was astonishing. 

“ As long as you’re buoyed up, Jean, it doesn’t mat¬ 
ter what does it—doggerel or doughnuts ! And life- 
preservers are very like doughnuts,” said Mrs. Wolcott. 
“ You’ll get my present to-night. Now I must go; it 


116 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


is a long walk to old Betsy’s and the sun is warm. I 
met Rod down the street and he said you had still bet¬ 
ter news of your mother yesterday. That’s fine ! By 
the way, Jean, I don’t admire that beautiful young 
person who was with Rodney. He looks as though 
he considered himself the earth’s axis. Selfish and 
scheming face.” 

“ I don’t like him either, Step-grand, dear,” said 
Jean. “ I feel ashamed to dislike him as I do, some¬ 
times. I don’t trust him one bit! Yet he seems very 
kind. Father likes him as much as Rod does ; he is in¬ 
terested in everything father talks about, and father 
does so enjoy having him to talk to ! I ought to like 
him for being so good as to let father tell him about in¬ 
ventions for hours. I wonder why we like some people 
and dislike others without a scrap of reason ? ” 

“ Pity if we hadn’t a little of the instinct that the 
dumb creatures have! ” said Mrs. Wolcott. 44 1 wouldn’t 
trust that young pink of perfection under the search¬ 
light of a war-ship! Jean, if you want me at any time, 
for anything, if it’s within my power, I hope you’d call 
on your queer old step-grandmother as soon as you 
would on Mrs. Cathcart or the Lumleys ? ” 

44 Thank you, dear Step-grand; of course I would. I 
always know that you are back of me. It must be a 
great deal the way the early settlers felt conscious of 


JEAN’S PEESENT 


117 


the block-house when they were fighting the Indians in 
the fields,” said Jean. 

Mrs. Claudia Wolcott departed with a slight smile on 
her lips and profound satisfaction in her heart. It was 
a lonely heart, as most solitary elderly ones are, and 
lacking all near kin of her own, she cherished her 
step-son’s children more tenderly than her crusty ways 
had led them to suspect. And of them all, Jean and 
Steve were dearest to her. It had’ been a real distress 
to her, competent and wise as she was, to see Jean 
growing up aloof from service to others, impractical, 
selfishly engrossed. She rejoiced with loving pride in 
the triumph of the girl over all the habits of her life. 

“ The Wolcotts have a lot in them, or I never should 
have married one of them,” thought Mrs. Wolcott, as 
she went briskly down the quiet Tidewater street. “ If 
that child adds sense to her talents—well, Mary and 
Bentley may be proud of their daughter Jean ! ” And 
she smiled broadly now, there being no one to see, 
though the smile made a little dog, lying on the lower 
step of a house she was passing, wag his tail in lazy 
acknowledgment, thinking the smile was for him. 

“ What is it going to be, Jean ? What should you 
think it would be going to be ? ” asked Dorcas, for the 
unnumbered time. She was greatly excited by the 
prospect of Jean’s present from their “ Step-grand.” 


118 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Sometimes 1 think it is jewelry, then I think maybe 
it is a carpet sweeper, or something like that. Once in 
a while I think maybe it’s a stock.” 

“ A stock ? To wear ? ” asked Jean. 

“ No. A stock ; yon know ! The stock you buy and 
get money from, once in a while, like a bank. I thought 
maybe she might give you one stock to be your very 
own, so you could spend what it paid you for candy, or 
books, or whatever you wanted to,” explained Dorcas. 

Rodney, sitting on the porch after tea with his 
family, uttered a whoop. 

“ What a kid you are, D.! ” he laughed. “ Always 
coming out with something nobody would suspect you 
of knowing about, and then not knowing it right. You 
don’t own a stock; you own stocks, or else a share in 
stocks. Jolly, I wish we did! If Tony gets his 
scheme going—but that’s not for publication now. No 
fear that Step-grand is giving Jean stocks ! Maybe it’s 
rubber gloves ; she said it would heal your hands, didn’t 
she, Jean ?” 

“ That might be cold cream, or a vacuum cleaner,” 
remarked Steve. “ No good guessing.” 

“ Where’s father ? ” asked Jean, suddenly discover¬ 
ing his absence. She was patting Dorcas’ shoulder 
soothingly, for Rod’s ridicule had ruffled the feathers 
of their youngest. 


JEAN’S PRESENT 


119 


“ He took Old King Cole and drove Anthony Dillon 
along the shore,” said Eod, with ill-concealed satisfac¬ 
tion. “ Tony wanted to have father show him some 
things—and I guess he can show father a thing or two ! 
They started about twenty minutes ago.” 

“ How’s your present coming ? ” demanded Dorcas, 
emerging from under her cloud, which had transferred 
itself to Jean’s brow as she heard, with the vague fear 
with which similar information always filled her, that 
her father was yielding to Mr. Dillon’s charm. 

“ I have no idea: I suppose Step-grand will send it 
down by Ellen, or by Herman. How queer that girl is 
out there ! I don’t know her, either. I thought at first 
she was coming here, but now-” 

“ She’s not coming here, nor going there,” Rodney 
finished her sentence for her. “She doesn’t act as 
though she had all her buttons.” 

“ She acts as though she was looking for them, then,” 
said Dorcas. “I’ve been watching her. You don’t 
think she could be a burglar’s wife, coming ahead of 
him, to hide and let him in after it’s dark, do you ? Or 
some one got away from an insane asylum ? ” she 
added in an awful whisper. 

“Well, for pity’s sake, Dorcas Wolcott!” laughed 
Jean. “ One would think you’d been reading the trash¬ 
iest stories, instead of the nicest books there are for 


120 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


small girls! She looks quiet and perfectly safe, but 
she does act strangely. Now she’s decided to come on.” 

The person they were discussing came on rapidly 
toward them, now that she had made her decision. 
She was neatly, but curiously attired in garments of 
various dates, her figure'was squat and strong, her face 
ruddy and pleasant; she was plainly a new arrival in 
Tidewater. 

“ Good-evening,” she said, when she was within hail¬ 
ing distance of the group on the Wolcott porch. “ Is 
this the place ? ” 

“ Yes,” said Rod, with perfect gravity. “ Yes, this 
is it.” 

“ Do you mean Mr. Wolcott’s house ? ” asked Jean, 
choking slightly and giving Rod a reproachful glance, 
as Dorcas sputtered into a cough and a laugh. 

“ Yes, miss, that’s what I mean,” returned the new¬ 
comer. “ Old Mrs. Wolcott—only she’s none so old, 
neither—she sent me down here. She says I’m your 
July fifth gift—I suppose it’s your birthday too soon.” 

“ Great Scott! ” exclaimed Rod and all four of the 
Wolcotts laughed ; it was impossible to help it. 

“No, sir; I’m Welsh, or my people is. I was born 
there, but I was taken away from the very first and 
brought to England, and I crossed to this country two 
years ago,” explained Jean’s “ gift.” “ I can do house- 


JEAN’S PRESENT 


121 


work so well you’d never believe, and I was looking for 
a place. Mrs. Wolcott had me sent to her by a friend 
she knows in Hingham—that’s where I was—and she’s 
sent me here for a July fifth gift to Miss Jean Wolcott, 
she said, who is her granddaughter by her marriage 
with her grandfather.” 

“ She’ll be the death of me,” murmured Rod, really 
quite purple in his effort to keep back the laughter 
which Steve was enjoying inwardly. Steve had a 
faculty of laughing his fill without uttering a sound 
and it served well in such cases as this. 

Dorcas had stopped laughing to sit up and regard this 
girl with growing wonder. 

Jean, crimson to her hair, asked, with a quavering 
voice: “ Didn’t Mrs. Wolcott say a Fourth of July 
gift?” 

“ Right you are, miss! ” cried the girl, apparently as 
surprised as she was pleased to recognize the fact. 
“ I might have remembered, on account of the fire¬ 
crackers and general noises. Am I to come in, 
please ? ” 

Jean sprang to her feet, realizing her duty. “ Indeed 
you are, and I’m very glad to see you. I—I never 
guessed my present was to be like this. Mrs. Wolcott 
said she was going to send me a present.” 

“ And my name,” observed the singular “ gift,” with 


122 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


a slight indication of her fanny little curtsey, “is 
Winifred Thomas, which I am called Winnie by every¬ 
body that I know. If I might go to my room, miss ? 
There wouldn’t be much more to do to-night, I fancy ? 
And I shall be getting up somewhere about four, so 
sleep one must, on one side of the clock or the other.” 

“Quite true, Winnie,” replied Jean, with difficulty, 
as Rod murmured for her ear alone: 

“ You don’t think she means one side of the bed or 
the other, do you ? ” 

“ I’ll show you your room, though it isn’t made 
ready for you, because I didn’t know you were coming,” 
Jean continued, leading the way into the house. “ But 
to-morrow we will arrange the room expressly for you. 
Don’t get up at four, Winnie. There won’t be any¬ 
thing to do so early; none of us will be up.” 

“ My room, miss, will be perfectly good, whatever 
way it is; I am humble-minded and strong in my 
body, so I rests content and sleeps, wherever and 
whatever. But as to the early start, miss, you must 
please let me have my way. I shall find plenty to do 
and no need of you to show me. I’ll be learning my 
closets and pans till you come down to show me the 
breakfast the first morning, but never again, miss, 
never again, will that be needed by Winnie Thomas, 
for once showing is shown, says I. And I am not long 


JEAN’S PEESENT 


123 


in this world, being twenty years old come Michaelmas 
week, which is just the time a goose would be best 
born, my late droll father used often tell me, and I 
know well, however good meaning, there’s a lot to be 
done, where a young lady has taken care of a house 
without experience.” 

Jean and her “ gift ” disappeared, leaving the others 
convulsed by Winnie’s departing speech, which floated 
back to them as she followed Jean up the stairs. 

“ Well, sir, if I ever ! ” exclaimed Steve fervently. 

“ Isn’t she funny! ” cried Dorcas, so impressed by 
the singularity of the new maiden that she no longer 
felt like laughing at her. 

“ Step-grand Claudia is just as funny to fool us this 
way,” said Eod. “ The girl’s a corker. But it’s a 
good thing for Jean; I’ll bet she is tired enough, if 
she’d own up.” 

“ Who’d ever have guessed that present! ” sighed 
Dorcas, not knowing whether to be pleased or a little 
disappointed. 


CHAPTER YIII 


jean’s holiday 


W INNIE THOMAS had declared truly that for 
her “once showing is shown.” Jean found 
herself at the end of three days feeling, as she herself 
said, “ as though Bunker Hill monument had. stooped 
down to take her up in the air, high above worry, yet 
on the firmest of pedestals.” After a week Winnie 
had made herself indispensable, and Jean w T as revel¬ 
ing in the care of her household, without the drudgery 
of housework. 

“ I’m almost too comfortable, you dear, kind Step- 
grand,” she said, thanking the donor of her “ gift ” all 
over again. “ I feel guilty, as if I were shirking— 
but, oh, it is so heavenly good to put on a fresh frock 
in the morning and find it still clean and unspotted 
from the world in the afternoon ! ” 

“ It’s one thing to shirk and another to take the 
good things that are sent us in the spirit with which 
they offer themselves,” returned Mrs. Claudia Wolcott. 

“Well, there’s no doubt that Winnie Thomas is 
a good thing! ” said Jean. “ And the best of her 
124 


JEAN’S HOLIDAY 


125 


is that she takes us all as a sort of mission; I think 
she feels that we are the real answer in the catechism 
to 4 Why were you created ” 

44 Jean, child, you are growing up ! ” exclaimed Mrs. 
Wolcott, though Jean did not see the connection, until 
she added: 44 Your remarks have put on long dresses 
and done up their hair. Did you know that people’s 
minds put on grown-up clothing, as well as their 
bodies ? It is shown by the way they express their 
ideas.” 

Jean laughed. 44 1 know one way in which I have 
grown up,” she said. 44 1 appreciate the funny little 
things you say much more than I did.” 

44 What are you going to do to-morrow ? And why 
do you get up to leave me so soon ? ” asked Mrs. Wol¬ 
cott. 

44 1 must go home, Step-grand, dear,” said Jean, who 
had hurried up to the elder Mrs. Wolcott’s that morn¬ 
ing on a hasty errand. 44 Winnie does not set me en¬ 
tirely free; I still have lots and lots to do, and the 
mending! Dorcas tears her clothes like a paper doll— 
only I can’t mend them with mucilage. Step-grand, 
dear, I do just naturally despise mending! ” 

44 Common complaint, step-granddaughter, dear; 
What did you tell me you were to do on the Fourth- 
to-morrow ? ” suggested Mrs. Wolcott. 


126 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ I didn’t tell you, did I ? Father and I are going 
over to West Tidewater in the morning; there’s a man 
over there who has a new seed-corn that father wants 
to try. It comes up in a jiffy and bears, I wouldn’t 
dare say how many ears to a stalk ! And is so sweet 
and tender and milky that it is fed to the youngest 
babies. That isn’t precisely what the circular said 
which this man sent father, but never mind. It is 
wonderful corn, so we are going to get some seed to put 
in that corner of the garden where dear daddy tried the 
hybrid pea-bean last year—you remember ? ” 

Jean laughed and her step-grandmother laughed with 
her. 

“ It wouldn’t be Bentley Wolcott if he didn’t try the 
marvelous corn ! Such a ridiculous story as that agent 
told of that cross between a pea and a bean! Yet 
Bentley believed him and planted it at no one knows 
how much a packet for the seeds ! ” sighed Mrs. Wol¬ 
cott. 

“ I know, and they came up the most ordinary hard 
peas ! ” laughed Jean. “ But sometimes I think, Step- 
grand, that father gets more than vegetables out of his 
hopes in his garden. Nobody else is as happy as he is, 
in spite of backache, when he plants it. Well, in any 
case, we are going after a sort of corn miracle at West 
Tidewater in the morning. In the evening all the 


JEAN’S HOLIDAY 


127 


young folks are going to bring their fireworks and fire¬ 
crackers over to our house and set them off, right in 
England’s face, on the ocean side of the house. Then 
I guess she’ll be sorry she let her stupid German king 
drive the colonies to independence almost a hundred 
and forty years ago ! ” 

“ I don’t know. Perhaps she will be glad she is rid 
of such a noisy pack of youngsters, when she hears 
those firecrackers in the rear of the Boston lower 
light!” retorted Mrs. Wolcott. “Good-bye, Jean; 
come as often as you can; invent errands. I do be¬ 
lieve I gave you Winnie as a present because I wanted 
you to get time to come to see me. I am only just see¬ 
ing through my own motives. I tell you, my dear, it 
is hard for a mere mortal to be purely noble.” 

Jean ran off, laughing happily. There was some 
thing cheering about the elder Mrs. Wolcott’s betrayal 
of affection for Jean. The girl had grown up in an 
atmosphere of adoring love, a love that she knew would 
be hers, whether she earned it or not. But her step- 
grandmother would not be especially fond of her as she 
grew older, unless she performed that feat in a way of 
which Mrs. Claudia Wolcott could approve. So Jean 
felt elated by the proof that she was earning affection 
from this source. 

The Fourth of July that year dawned and developed 


128 


HER DAUGHTER JEAH 


as a typical Fourth. There was a morning of pink and 
blue and lilac and golden splendors, with a breeze that 
set the Crimson Ramblers, which rioted over the gray 
end of the old Wolcott house, swinging and nodding 
in it. 

Hot many hours after that dawn had expanded into 
cloudless sunshine in the east, with feathery breeze 
clouds, capable of whipping up showers by night in the 
west, Mr. Wolcott welcomed Jean, in her pretty blue 
lawn, to his side in the unlevel seat of the old phaeton, 
and suggested gently to Old King Cole that, if he were 
not averse to doing so, he might set forth. King Cole 
moved deliberately away, took up the steady jog trot 
with which he managed to perform his tasks at the 
least inconvenience to himself, and the expedition was 
begun. 

Mr. Wolcott was not prone to talk; he best enjoyed 
companionship that exacted little of him, unless it 
chanced to be of that rare variety which felt, or feigned, 
an interest in his absorbing passion, an understanding of 
his dearest dreams. Of his four children Jean was the 
most like him, in spite of the practical side that she had 
lately proved hers, and with Jean her father was hap¬ 
piest. How she did not interrupt his thoughts with 
chatter, but left him to guide King Cole—who always 
seemed to be a horse exactly in sympathy with his 


JEAN’S HOLIDAY 


129 


master—slowly along the quiet streets in silence, sing¬ 
ing softly to herself, as she had long ago found out that 
her father loved to hear her. 

“Jean, child,” said Mr. Wolcott, unexpectedly break¬ 
ing into this quiet accord, “ you are a good girl, my 
dear.” 

“ Thank you, daddy mine,” said Jean surprised. Then 
she added, dimpling: 44 Though you know they say 

that when a girl is dull, and plain, and there isn’t any¬ 
thing else nice to say of her, people call her 4 a good 
girl.’ ” 

44 You are quite pretty enough for me, daughter, and 
we have never considered you dull, but you are a good 
girl,” persisted Mr. Wolcott. “I wanted you to know 
that I have noticed how comfortable I was. As a rule,” 
he added candidly, 44 when I am comfortable I do not 
notice it; only when something is lacking, I fear, do I 
take note of my surroundings. But I have noticed how 
well you have taken care of all of us since your mother 
went away, and—you are a good girl, Jean.” 

44 Why, little father,” cried Jean touched, 44 it isn’t 
good in me to keep house, though it would have been 
bad in me not to. You don’t know how glad I am you 
have been comfortable. I begin to think I’d rather be 
a good daughter Jean, than the great writer Jean Wol¬ 
cott I wanted to be.” 


130 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Yes, yes ; I know that feeling,” nodded Mr. Wol¬ 
cott emphatically. “ Jean, I am afraid that what I 
said just now was only too true—that I don’t notice 
when I am comfortable, you know. I have been won¬ 
dering if your mother has not missed my gratitude, my 
appreciation? You see, my dear, it must be hard fora 
woman to go on day after day, year after year, with¬ 
out spoken appreciation of her work. It isn’t like a 
man; if my work isn’t understood now, it does not mat¬ 
ter. I am working for posterity; I know that, when 
my visions are realities, my name will go down gar¬ 
landed with grateful praise. But a woman works only 
for her loved ones, to make possible her husband’s fame. 
I fear your mother may have missed the gratitude I 
ought to show her. I feel it, Jean, I feel it! I know 
what self-forgetfulness, what loveliness is the entire 
fibre of your mother’s being, but I don’t say so enough, 
I don’t show the knowledge, Jean. When she comes 
back I mean to do better.” 

“ Little father,” said Jean, once more using her child¬ 
ish pet name for the tall man beside her, her eyes 
glistening as she looked at him with tears on her lashes, 
“you are such a dear little Bentley Wolcott-boy! 
Mother understands, I’m sure of that. She loves you 
so dearly that she can’t miss anything in you. When 
you love any one very much you love them just as they 


JEAN’S HOLIDAY 


131 


are, don’t you ? And their ways must be right to you. 
Besides, mother loves you like & mother, too ; she loves 
to take care of you. I imagine it is her reward just to 
do what she does every day, and to know that it keeps 
you comfortable and lets you work on your inventions.” 

Jean’s father turned and looked at her. “ That little 
elucidation proves that you know how women love their 
dear ones ; Jeannie, you are growing up,” he said. 

“ That’s what Step-grand told me yesterday,” laughed 
Jean. “ I suppose when a girl is past sixteen she is 
getting glimpses of the way ahead of her. I feel as 
though I had grown older since mother went away. 
Oh, father dear, you talk of not telling mother that 
you know exactly how wonderful she is, but how do 
you suppose I feel when I remember that I let her 
overdo and never saw how she needed my help, not 
any more than if I had been a stone idol—instead of 
selfish idle ! ” And, in spite of her real contrition, Jean 
laughed a little at her small jest. 

“ There is something else that I have thought a great 
deal about of late, Jean,” said Mr. Wolcott, with a hesi¬ 
tancy that was almost timid. “ And that is money.” 

“ Money! Father, of all things the very last you 
would be likely to think of ! ” cried Jean. 

“ Ah, that is it, my dear! ” exclaimed her father. 
“ You see most men do think of it, do make wealth for 


132 


HEE DAUGHTEB JEAN 


their families. But I—do not. I am afraid your 
mother has been a godd deal put about by this. It is 
all very well for me—again, I am working for pos¬ 
terity, not for gain—but for her ! She must often have 
to manage and plan to bring up you children, because I 
am not like other men. I think, perhaps, it is my duty 
to arouse myself.” 

“ Father,” cried Jean, with a stab of the apprehension 
that she felt so often of late, “ we do not need any more 
than we have. If it ever was hard for mother, it was 
when we were small; now it is easier, and soon the 
boys, and I hope the elder girl, will be helpful to you. 
I don’t care one bit about money.” 

“ You are too young to know what it means, my 
dear, besides being your father’s own child; I never 
should be able to see its importance,” returned Mr. 
Wolcott. “ But if I can make an inheritance for you, 
a greater one, I ought to do it, and very possibly Dorcas 
will care more for the things of this world than you do; 
I think Eodney already does.” 

“ No, no, father; you must not imagine we are not all 
perfectly well off as we are,” said Jean. “ I think—I 
feel sure—mother would rather have everything un¬ 
changed. Don’t you know she is glad that we have 
the inheritance of our old name, honorable among these 
who founded the Tidewaters and helped to found the 


JEAN’S HOLIDAY 


133 


nation ? And the inheritance, of that dear old home of 
ours, without too much money to clog our steps ? Don’t 
you remember mother always says it is good to have 
just the start we have and to be obliged to get the rest 
for ourselves ?” 

“ As to that, my dear Jean, I suppose we could turn 
our home to greater advantage than to hold it genera¬ 
tion after generation,” said Mr. Wolcott, with manifest 
reluctance. 

“ No, oh, no, we never, never could ! ” cried Jean. 
“ Father dear, don’t you know that if you are working 
for posterity, as you say, if your invention succeeds, 
then we shall be the first of posterity to get profit out 
of it ? Why do you feel dissatisfied when you are sure 
it will succeed ? For then won’t you have done enough 
for us ? ” 

Jean felt half ashamed to appeal to this faith of her 
father’s in his air rudder, for none of his family be¬ 
lieved it would ever prove more than a mirage, but she 
was frightened by this first hint of a clue to the actual 
ground for the fears that of late had been vaguely 
haunting her. 

Mr. Wolcott turned to Jean with the sweet smile that 
made his face beautiful at times. 

“ Isn’t it ridiculous for such an impractical pair as we 
are, Jeannie, to discuss business and money getting ? 


134 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


We would be better employed enjoying a morning that 
seems to justify us in finding wealth in other things 
than money,” he said. 

“ Ah, yes, fatherums ! And you and I are rich any¬ 
way ! ” Jean eagerly assented. “ What a nice little 
poem that would make ! ” 

“We are never awake long, Jean,” laughed Mr. 
Wolcott with a rare perception of the tendency in 
them both to drop into poetry, and out of workaday 
themes. 

So after this there was no more talk of realities, nor 
much talk of any sort, but a long and peaceful jogging 
through the country road that connected the two Tide¬ 
waters ; Jean singing softly, her father meditating, 
both seeing every bird that flew, hearing every song 
from tree and shrub, feeling every caressing breeze, and 
both perfectly happy, while Old King Cole philosophized 
to the even beat of his hoofs in common time. 

When they came back it was nearly noon and Mr. 
Wolcott was in high delight because beneath the phaeton 
seat reposed two quarts of the marvelous corn which 
sprouted sooner, grew faster, bore larger and more ears 
to the stalk, as well as tenderer and sweeter ones, than 
any other corn under cultivation—Mr. Wolcott knew 
this to be so because the West Tidewater man selling it 
had told him so ! Jean had remonstrated on buying 


JEAN’S HOLIDAY 


135 


such a quantity for a patch of ground twelve feet 
square, the space given over to corn in that year’s 
garden, but her father had persisted, saying that he 
should plant it repeatedly, as it ripened so fast—yet this 
was already the Fourth of July ! Jean felt that her 
dear father was not in danger, after all, of becoming 
too practical. But how happy the corn made him! 
How happy all his enthusiasms made him ! Young as 
she was, Jean felt a maternal pleasure in his anticipa¬ 
tions, which previous experiences made her doubt would 
be fulfilled. 

Winnie appeared in the doorway, watching for their 
return, as Mr. Wolcott and Jean in the phaeton rolled 
slowly along, following Old King Cole’s leisurely ad¬ 
vance. Dorcas danced down the steps and down the 
walk, waving her arms wildly, screaming so loud that 
it was impossible to hear what Winnie was saying, 
though her moving lips showed she was doing her best 
to be heard, nor could Dorcas be understood. 

Jean jumped out over the wheel before King Cole 
had fully stopped. “ What is it all about, Dorcas ? ” 
she cried. “ Your voice is so shrill I can’t make out 
what you say. It is precisely like not being able ‘ to 
see the town, it was so full of houses.’ ” 

“ Helen was here, Jean,” cried Dorcas, jumping up 
and down as she explained. “ Winnie, go back into the 


136 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


house; I’m going to tell! Helen said I was to tell you 
not to get anything ready to eat to-night; we wouldn’t 
want any supper here.” 

Dorcas looked so excited, was plainly so elated that 
Jean was suspicious. 

“ A surprise party ? ” she asked. Then, seeing that 
Dorcas was torn asunder by her desire to tell she helped 
her to do her duty. “ No, don’t tell me, D. dear! 
Helen told you to keep something a secret, so keep it. 
All right; I won’t make the cake I meant to make, 
then. What time will the party begin ? ” 

“ At dusk, Miss Jean,” said Winnie; she was as eager 
as Dorcas to reveal what she knew. “ And dinner is 
beautifully ready. The green peas is so perfect you 
would never believe! I boiled sweet peas for you; 
Master Steve said I was to tell you ; he thought you 
didn’t know it.” 

“ Did you tell Steve they were sweet peas ? ” asked 
Jean, guessing one of Winnie’s funny mistakes. “ I 
didn’t know there were sweet peas to boil for dinner, 
but I’m more than ready to try them.” She ran up¬ 
stairs to make ready for the holiday dinner, blessing 
Mrs. Claudia Wolcott all over again for Winnie, who 
made a holiday possible to Jean. 

That evening the Wolcotts got together on the 
porch early, to wait for their guests. Dorcas could 


JEAN’S HOLIDAY 


137 


not sit still; hardly had she seated herself than she 
began to fidget, bounced up again and ran down the 
steps eagerly to scan the street for the first glimpse of 
the expected, and she repeated the performance over 
and over till Rod put his hands on her shoulders and 
held her down by main force while he repeated the 
Declaration of Independence. He was, not unreasona¬ 
bly, proud of knowing it from beginning to end. But 
when he released Dorcas, off she flew again and they 
all laughed. • 

“ Let her go, Rod; she’ll turn into a sky rocket if 
you don’t,” advised Steve. 

At last Dorcas was rewarded, though, as she an¬ 
nounced that she “ saw them coming,” the others 
heard them. A concatenation of sounds, fainter, 
then swelling louder, floated to the group on the 
porch, funny little shrill whistles, a drum, and singing 
that made up in volume what it lacked in purely 
musical quality. 

Jean followed the boys in their rush down the steps 
to join Dorcas who was whirling on the sidewalk like a 
dervish. 

The procession developed. First, marched Roger 
Cathcart in the character of drum major,- a muff 
strapped on his head, a cutaway coat made in the middle 
of the nineteenth century and white linen trousers his 


138 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


costume. He carried an imposing wand, surmounted 
by a croquet ball and decorated with ribbons, and he 
marked time with it, using all the twirls and tossings 
of a veritable drum major’s baton, in the hands of a 
real drum major. Behind Roger marched all the young 
people of Tidewater who had been Jean’s playmates 
and classmates. Baskets were swinging between some 
pairs of them, big packages were carried by others, 
while four able-bodied boys bore an ice-cream freezer 
on two poles, carried as a water jar is Carried in the 
East. A banner of thinnest muslin, stretched across a 
frame and oiled, allowed red cambric letters pasted on 
its surface to be read from both sides. These letters 
formed an inscription stating that this deputation was 
“ The Tidewater Delegates. To Honor the Poet and 
Dutiful Daughter, Jean Wolcott.” 

Jean laughed till she cried, yet was overpowered, in 
spite of knowing it was all fun ; she rightly guessed 
that Roger had been the originator of this tribute. 
The bearers of the various baskets, packets and freezer, 
deposited their burdens on the steps, and some one in a 
tight-fitting red cambric suit, masked and horned, set 
off red Bengal fire by way of beginning the celebra¬ 
tion. The boys put up a frame which they had 
brought ready for the purpose, and from it rockets and 
Roman candles sped oceanward, lighting up the sky 


JEAN’S HOLIDAY 


139 


eastward and, for the moment, dimming the steady 
industry of the revolving light, out on the distant rocks. 
When the fireworks were nearly over “ the committee ” 
unpacked the hampers and served a supper; sand¬ 
wiches, lemonade, cakes, ice-cream, everything that the 
most patriotic or the hungriest could ask for a Fourth 
of July banquet. 

Then came the glory of the evening, the splendid 
tribute upon which Roger prided himself and upon 
which he had expended ingenuity, time and dollars. 
From the top of the fireworks frame flashed upon the 
darkness characters formed by electricity, supplied by 
portable batteries fastened to the frame. These char¬ 
acters read : “ G. W. 1776. J. W. 1913.” That was 
all, but they who ran might read ! George Washing¬ 
ton, to be commemorated on his country’s birthday 
as its father. Jean Wolcott, to be honored by her 
comrades as a genius and a daughter ! 

Jean laughed and laughed, embarrassed, amused, 
pleased, all at once, and “ the delegates ” loudly ap¬ 
plauded. 

Helen hugged her friend on the spot. “ It’s a lark, 
of course,” she said, “ but, after all, it’s so ! ” Which, 
though not a lucid remark, clearly conveyed its mean¬ 
ing, for Roger cried: 

“ Hear, hear ! It sure is ! ” and beamed on Jean so 


140 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


approvingly that it was like the sun “ shining on the 
sea, shining with all his might,” though it was, if not 
“ the middle of the night,” long after the sun’s working 
hours. 

It was pleasant to have good old Roger so friendly 
again, after a partial eclipse of his cordiality! Jean 
went to bed that night with the final patriotic choruses, 
with which the Fourth of July celebration had ended, 
ringing in her ears, exceedingly happy. It was a 
kindly world that she lived in; it was good to lie down 
in the old Wolcott house, to be Jean Wolcott, of Tide¬ 
water, among the people who had been her forefathers’ 
people, through the generations of descent in this 
unchanging town ! Her troubles were dissolving, too, 
and that was good. It was good to be alive to the 
human side of living, to be warmed by this comical 
tribute, which held an approval of her in its fun¬ 
making, an approval that Jean felt and leaped to 
meet. Best of all the dear mother was recovering! 
What a happy July holiday it was, thought Jean, fall¬ 
ing asleep gratefully. 


CHAPTER IX 


JEAN MAKES ANOTHER NEW ACQUAINTANCE 

“TV /TISS JEAN,” Winnie saluted Jean on her ap- 
IV JL pearance, ten days after the Fourth, omitting 
her usual “ good-morning,” “ Miss Jean, what is it a 
sign of when you dream something like a big imp, an 
evil spirit, is holding you head downward over a hot 
fire, to cook you for a horrible fierce African’s dinner ? ” 
“ Mercy me, Winnie, I don’t know! ” cried Jean. 
“ I don’t believe a dream like that was ever dreamed in 
Tidewater ! It must be a sign that the windows were 
closed in the bedroom, or else that there was some¬ 
thing for supper that never must be eaten at a supper 
again.” 

But Winnie refused to smile. “ Miss Jean,” she said 
impressively, “ the windows was as open as they could 
be, and a lamb could have eaten the peaceful supper. 
And such a dream has been dreamed in Tidewater, the 
very last night that ever shone on the world. By me. 
And I ask you, miss, what it could be the sign of ? ” 

“ I have no idea; I don't know much about signs, 
Winnie. It sounds like a dreadfully uncomfortable 
141 


142 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


dream ; you must have had something wrong with you. 

Now I look at you, Winnie- Why, yes ; you look 

queer! What is it ? Are you sick ? ” cried Jean 
alarmed. 

“ Miss Jean, I am not sick, but I am ill,” replied 
Winnie, not intending to correct Jean, but differentiat¬ 
ing between her symptoms by the English restriction 
on the terms. “ I feel all over.” 

“Well, you look it,” said Jean, trying to be unself¬ 
ishly concerned, but with a keen sense of what Winnie’s 
illness would mean to her, now that she had learned to 
depend on the little maid. “ Go up-stairs and lie down, 
Winnie ; I will get breakfast.” 

“No, Miss Jean,” said Winnie firmly. “While lean 
stand, I stand by my flag. I take it Rule Brittania and 
the saying: 4 England expects every man to do his 
duty,’ is for women, too, though in the olden times and 
before the suf-forage-ettes ”—Winnie mispronounced 
the word carefully, in a way that struck Jean as suitable 
—“ attacked His Majesty in the windows of his realms 
with rocks, England never said what she expected of 
women, because it was plain to be seen. So while I 
can stick to my post I shall always feel that posted I 
must remain. I will get breakfast, Miss Jean, though 
as to who will get the dinner is in the hands of the 
future, which no man knows till it goes past you.” 


ANOTHER NEW ACQUAINTANCE 143 

Jean beat a retreat at the close of this declaration of 
Winnie’s principles; her resolute expression showed 
that protest would be useless, and Jean’s overpowering 
desire to laugh seemed heartless. 

Carrying out her interpretation of Rule Brittania and 
Nelson’s immortal words, Winnie served breakfast and 
insisted on continuing her morning work unassisted. 
Jean, therefore, set out after breakfast to weed the bed 
of scarlet geraniums. It glowed against the back¬ 
ground of ocean, at what should properly have been the 
rear of the house, except that the sea reversed the order 
of its importance. 

There was a crisp breeze that made endurable this 
performance of a task that was Rodney’s. Rod had a 
talent for eluding tasks, and this morning he had darted 
off early; faithful Steve’s flower beds, at the front, 
showed faultless spaces of lightly raked brown earth 
between their blooming green. 

Jean could never weed half-heartedly; she always 
set out with trowel and daintiness and ended by grub¬ 
bing with her immolated fingers. She had had pre¬ 
cisely time enough to make her hair pretty in ringed 
disorder, and her face charming under its flushed 
warmth, but her hands quite grimy with soil, when 
there came up the steps from the beach, and over the 
dune that intervened between the house and the cliff, 


144 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


a lady. She was young, though to Jean’s sixteen years 
she seemed so only to a degree. She was pretty, and 
she was clad in the most faultless of linens, in a style 
eloquent of Broadway. In her hand she carried a' 
recent issue of Guernsey's Magazine. She advanced 
smiling and Jean thought with dismay of her pink 
gingham morning gown, though she could not help 
knowing that it was becoming, and of its sleeves tucked 
up to her elbows and the rounded arms it thus revealed 
decorated with loam—and of her unlucky earth-coated 
hands! 

“ What fun to catch the poet unawares! This is the 
poet? ” asked the stranger, advancing upon Jean with 
a smiling grace that bore upon it the atmosphere of a 
world removed from Tidewater. 

“ I—I have written some verses-” hesitated Jean, 

wondering and embarrassed. 

“ Don’t I know that! I received this Guernsey's in 
the mail last night and read these graceful verses, £ The 
Racing Waves,’ ” said the stranger, smiling on Jean and 
tapping the magazine which she carried under her arm 
as if she and it shared a pleasant secret. “ Then, as I 
held this magazine open upon my knee and wondered 
who might be the new contributor—Jean Wolcott— 
along came Mine Host of the Garter—only I am stop¬ 
ping at the Cliff House!—and told me that Jean Wol- 


ANOTHER NEW ACQUAINTANCE 


145 


cott was a Tidewater girl, and an exceedingly young 
one at that! He seemed visibly to swell with pride in 
her when his eye fell on the printed page that bore her 
name, and he volunteered his information, radiant with 
reflected glory ! It would not have occurred to me to 
ask him about the new poet. So this morning, having 
found out just where you lived, I ventured to stroll 
this way to see if I could find one of my craft for a lit¬ 
tle chat. We come away from town to rest from shop 
talk, but, after all, we miss it.” 

“ Do you write ? Won’t you come up and sit on the 
porch ? There’s a lovely sea breeze this morning,” 
murmured Jean, fluttering with delightful embarrass¬ 
ment, though her visitor had talked on to put her at 
her ease. 

“Everything is more than lovely this morning; 
breeze, land, sea, sky, everything! ” affirmed Jean’s 
caller, accepting the invitation. “ I write, yes. I 
write a great deal, but I don’t write great things. My 
name is Hester Balfour.” 

“ Oh ! ” cried Jean. “ I’ve read lots of your stories ; 
I always read them first.” 

“Why, you dear little poet!” cried Miss Balfour. 
“ That was the nicest sort of a compliment. It is such 
a joy to write a story, that it ought to be reward 
enough. But one is most glad to find some one enjoy- 


146 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


ing the reading of it: there has been such a doubt in 
one’s mind that any one ever would want to read it, that 
is, since it was finished! It’s a queer thing about a 
story! You start out with positive rapture, you’re so 
confident that this time you have a great idea! And 
gradually that slips away into a doubt, and then the 
doubt gives way to certainty that it is no good, and you 
force yourself to write on without a bit of inspiration, 
and with your mind and fingers heavy with despondency. 
And when it is done you know that you have spoiled 
it! So you send it off with a sort of desperate dis¬ 
couragement, yet determination. And when it is 
published you wonder if you really ever wrote any¬ 
thing so decent! But no matter how conceited your 
own cleverness may make you, when you see it in type, 
you go through the same variation of spirits with the 
next tale, and send it off just as sure as you were before 
that you have spoiled a good idea. We’re a queer con¬ 
fraternity, aren’t we, little sister ? ” 

“ I didn’t suppose any one who was a real writer, 
and—and such a writer as Hester Balfour, would feel 
like that,” said Jean, timidly, yet happily. “ That is 
the way I always feel, about a story I try to write, or 
verses, either. But then I am right! I do have good 
ideas, sometimes, but I don’t know how to carry them 
out—yet.” 


ANOTHER NEW ACQUAINTANCE 


147 


“ We are all alike, more or less,” returned Miss Bal¬ 
four. “ Nobody who is the least bit an artist will ever 
feel that he has worthily treated his inspiration, 
whether he paints, carves or writes his thought. Will 
you tell me about yourself ? Do you write much ? 
And do you intend to make writing your work in life ? 
I knew you were only a slip of a girl, but I did not 
realize it till I saw you; your verses gave the first im¬ 
pression of you and, till I saw you, that survived what 
I was told of you.” 

“ I should like to write, be a real writer, if I could,” 
said Jean, with humility that would not have been hers 
a half year earlier. “ But I have been learning quite 
different work and I think, perhaps, after all, I ought to 
take my diploma in that first.” 

“ I forgot to tell you who else had given me a clue to 
you,” said Miss Balfour. “ I came down on the train 
with the nicest young fellow ! We grew quite friendly. 
He told me his name was Roger Cathcart, and when I 
confided mine to him and told him my trade was spin¬ 
ning tales, he told me about a girl in Tidewater who 
had been his little schoolmate, and who wrote beauti¬ 
ful verses and meant to make writing her business in 
the world. He did not tell me her name, but when 
Mr. Gibson, of the Cliff House, told me the Jean Wol¬ 
cott, whose poem is in this Guernsey's, was a little Tide- 


148 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


water lassie I put the two bits of information together, 
feeling sure that she was also the schoolmate of my 
nice boy on the train, and that I already knew her. It 
made me bolder to hunt you up.” 

“ Did Roger tell you about me ? He never liked my 
verses ; he never let me know if he thought they, or any 
of the other things I tried to write, were worth doing,” 
said Jean. “ I shouldn’t think you’d have to be very 
bold to hunt me up, Miss Balfour. You know, you 
must know, how I feel about your coming to see me, 
how grateful I am to you. I shall be as happy as I can 
be to think that I’ve seen you, that you’ve actually sat 
right here on our porch with me, when I get over being 
afraid of you.” 

Miss Balfour laughed. “ Not precisely frightened 
fear when you can speak of it,” she said shrewdly. 
“ I’m not formidable ; I’m not old and I’m not great; 
just a spinner of yarns, like you, only I am twelve 
years older than you, and twelve years farther toward 
our goal. Have you published much? You can’t 
have ; you haven’t lived long enough ! ” 

“ Sixteen years, as some one must have told you,” 
smiled Jean. “ I have sent lots of verses to papers and 
magazines, and those which never pay for contributions 
have published them. This is the first time I’ve had 
anything in a big magazine. I didn’t know it had been 


ANOTHER NEW ACQUAINTANCE 


149 


printed.” She looked hungrily at the magazine in Miss 
Balfour’s hand. 

“ They’ll send you a copy,” said Miss Balfour, hand¬ 
ing Guernsey’s to Jean. “ Isn’t it beyond telling to see 
what you’ve written in print ? One’s work changes so 
in the process ! We know they are the old familiar 
lines and sentences we constructed so carefully, but they 
‘ have suffered a sea-change into something rich and 
strange.’ I think it must be rather like seeing one’s 
little boy come home fitted out with his first boyish 
knickerbockers, when he left home still a little nonde¬ 
script in skirts ! I envy you in beginning to publish. 
That keen delight wears off after a time ; you lose your 
first fine rapture—it’s not a 6 first fine careless rapture ’ 
by any means, is it ? It’s deeply impressed and impress¬ 
ive. Have you a story on the way ? ” 

So she lured Jean on to talk, and Jean began to talk. 
Before she realized that she was doing so she had con¬ 
fided her hopes and ambitions to this older girl, with 
the face that was less a pretty face than an irresistible 
one. Miss Balfour had also an entirely irresistible way 
of acting as though she were accustomed to no denials, 
as if she deserved to get her own will because it was 
indeed a sweet will, as ready to confer benefits as to 
receive them. 

Jean not only told her about her dreams of fame, but 


150 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


she told her of her mother, of how she had gone away, 
and that she was getting better. She did not say any¬ 
thing of her hard struggle to look after the family, to 
perform unaccustomed tasks, but Miss Balfour was far 
too quick-sighted, too sympathetic to miss the lines of 
the little story which were not made clear, but were 
to be read between the visible ones. 

“ That’s a sweeter story than you could invent, dear 
little Miss Wolcott-” 

“ Jean,” interrupted the younger girl. 

“ Dear little Jean,” Miss Balfour adopted the amend¬ 
ment. “ Of course you are more than recompensed for 
the hard days by your dear mother’s improvement. 
Oh, Jean, my mother did not improve ! She was ill, 
too, when I was two years older than you now are, 
and she did not turn back to me, though I tried and 
prayed to hold her ! She went on and away from me; 
so gentle, so devoted, so loath ever to grieve me, yet 
she went on that weary road to her rest and left me 
with a longing that nothing can ever quite still. I am 
glad, dear, that your mother is coming home to you.” 

There was silence for a moment, Jean’s eyes full of 
tears, Miss Balfour looking far out to sea with eyes that 
sought beyond the line where sky and ocean met. She 
aroused herself with a long intaken breath. 

“ Aside from the greatest reward you could have, 


ANOTHER NEW ACQUAINTANCE 151 

child, and aside from the effect this summer must have 
in strengthening, deepening your character, it will do 
something else—though that is a part of the other. It 
will teach you much that you must know before you 
can write well. It is not lost time, my dear ! But if 
it did no more for you than make you a finer woman, 
that’s the main thing, after all! ” 

“ That’s what Roger Cathoart says,” said Jean, with 
a tiny laugh. 

“ Sane and sensible; fine lad, my acquaintance, 
Roger Cathcart,” said Miss Balfour. “ Though he had 
never heard of my stories, and did not know Hester 
Balfour’s name from a housemaid’s—yet that may prove 
how sensible he is! ” she added gaily. “ Now, little 
Jean Wolcott, poet and housekeeper and happy, devoted 
daughter, I must get back to the Cliff House. I’m 
quite sure that if its guests are not in to dinner at the 
hour, they suffer—and so do all the viands ! It’s a nice 
little hotel, a boarding-house seen through a magnify¬ 
ing glass. I must not keep you here, either.” 

“ Dinner will not be served at the Cliff House for a 
long, long time ; it is early,” said Jean. “ And I have 
nothing to do that can’t wait. Please stay just a little 

longer, if you don’t mind, and—and- Could you 

tell me something about the authors in New York ? 
You know them ? ” 


152 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Miss Balfour sank back with profound pleasure in 
this youthful idealism. “ I know a few of them,” she 
said, “ and many of the others I have met at dinners 
and luncheons. I will tell you what I can ; please ask 
questions, to start me off in the direction in which you’d 
like me to run.” 

She talked, easily, entertainingly,well for more than 
an hour longer. When she arose to go Jean’s cheeks 
were burning with the excitement of her first contact 
with the fairy-land of letters which she longed to enter. 
Miss Balfour spoke of people whose existence Jean saw 
afar, through the rainbow-hued mists of the incense 
which she burned to their talents, people who existed 
to her as writers, rather than as people, but whom Miss 
Balfour knew familiarly in the flesh—and still survived! 
Miss Balfour herself, but a short time ago, had been one 
of these myth-like ideals, yet here she was, emerged 
into the sunshine of a Tidewater July morning, sitting 
on the porch talking to Jean as if the young girl were 
one of the initiated, almost as if she were a friend! 

Miss Balfour went away, promising to return, if Jean 
would let her, leaving the girl in a confusion of bliss. 
It looked as though now, just when Jean had put 
aside her ambitions in order to do her duty to her 
loved ones, the fairies were rewarding her with her 
first opportunity to attain those ambitions. For Miss 


ANOTHER NEW ACQUAINTANCE 


153 


Balfour had spoken of opening to Jean the door of the 
House of Fame, to which, through her large editorial 
and publishing acquaintance, she held a key. 

Jean stood for a few moments after her guest had 
gone looking out to sea with the rapt gaze of one who 
saw visions. Then she aroused herself with a percep¬ 
tion that the house was perfectly still and that she had 
known that it was so for some time, though she could 
not descend to realization of this knowledge. 

Jean hurried through the hall that ran from front to 
rear of the old colonial house and opened the kitchen 
door. There, prone upon the floor, lay Winnie, uncon¬ 
scious, her bulky little frame revealing the edge of the 
tin pan upon which it had fallen. The potatoes which 
the pan had held were scattered around her, as if she 
were a tremendous specimen of that variety of cactus 
called “ old hen and chickens.” In her right hand 
Winnie still clasped the short peeling knife with which 
she had been about to carry out her Casabianca princi¬ 
ples when she had been overcome. 

“ Oh, Winnie! ” gasped Jean, and she ran to the 
sink for a dipperful of the cold water which the Wol¬ 
cotts still obtained from the ancient spring well of 
olden times, disregarding modern supplies. 

Winnie’s eyes opened feebly as Jean dampened her 
forehead and wrists, and rubbed her pulses. 


154 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ I’m—mortified,” murmured Winnie by an effort. 
“ It’s—the—first.” 

“ Never mind fainting, Winnie; it used to be fashion¬ 
able,” said Jean. “ Where do you feel ill ? Have you 
pain ? ” 

Winnie negatively rolled her head from side to side 
on the floor. “ I felt—strange. Then I fell—with the 
—potatoes,” she said. 

With great relief Jean heard the boys coming in to¬ 
gether by the back door. 

“ Well, I will! ” exclaimed Steve fervently. 

“ Say, what’s up with the Winner ? ” asked Rodney, 
forgetting, in his alarm, that Winnie did not know that 
he thus referred to her in private. 

“ Winnie’s not well; we must help her up-stairs,” 
said Jean. “ Rod and Steve, put your arms under her 
shoulders and lift her. Winnie, take my hands and 
pull.” 

“ My, she looks bleached! I’m going to get her 
some of mother’s grape wine,” cried Steve, and care¬ 
fully shifted his share of Winnie’s weight upon his 
brother while he carried out his intention. 

The home-made wine enabled poor Winnie to stagger 
along, leaning on the boys, and to mount the stairs 
slowly and with difficulty. Jean helped her to bed and 
left her to the sleep, into which she at once fell, while 


ANOTHER NEW ACQUAINTANCE 155 


Jean ran down-stairs to get together something in lieu 
of the dinner which was overdue. 

Dorcas danced in while Jean was hurrying her prep¬ 
arations and trying not to worry over Winnie’s break¬ 
down, gaily waving a skirt torn from belt to hem. 

“ The Lumley boy, Bert Lumley, dared me to teeter 
on the highest pile down at the sawmill, Jean, and my 
skirt caught. But aren’t you glad it did, ’cause if it 
hadn’t I’d have been broken to crumbs, ’most likely ; I 
slipped,” cried the irrepressible child, heading off 
blame, as she often did, by an outpouring of enthusiasm. 

“Jean, dear, isn’t dinner somewhat late? I asked 
Mr. Lovett in to dinner to look at my rudder after¬ 
ward ; I forgot to mention it to you, or to Winnie. 
Ah, yes; there he is coming now. By the way, where 
is Winnie?” said Mr. Wolcott, appearing in the door¬ 
way at this moment with his sweetest, but most absent- 
minded smile. 

“ Oh, father, father! ” cried poor Jean. “Winnie’s 
sick ; there’s no dinner! If only you had told me! 
Oh, father! Go straight up-stairs, Dorcas, and take off 
that skirt. Please, father, meet Mr. Lovett and tell 
him- No, I will! ” 

“Now, Jean, take it easy ! ” advised Steve, checking 
her with his quiet smile, a hand on her shoulder. 
“ Count ten, you know ! Make it a hundred! On 


156 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


July fifteenth, 2001, it won’t matter a speck. Rod, go 
along out with father and tell Mr. Lovett we just 
found the Winner—don’t forget and call her that!—on 
the floor, and the dinner fell down with her. Tell him 
we can’t have anything but a lunch to-day,* and that 
isn’t quite ready. Now, Jean, don’t get flustered! 
Say, how suddenly sudden things happen ; ever notice 
it?” 

“ Oh, Steve, you flat-iron ! ” cried Jean, with an intent 
to express Steve’s ability to smooth out wrinkles, but 
making Steve laugh at her word. “ I should think I 
had noticed it! And it will be worse to have Winnie 
sick than it was before she came ! And just when I 
was getting on so beautifully and Miss Balfour made 
me feel as if I was bound in vellum, living in a 
mahogany bookcase! ” 

Lacking the clue to this remark Steve stared, but if 
Jean were getting delirious it was best to pretend not 
to see it. 

“ I’ll get in some lettuce and wash it, and then I’ll 
cut down and fetch the quickest steak there is at the 
shop,” said this reliable young brother. “ We’ll make 
Rod fry some of the wrecked potatoes and grind coffee, 
and maybe D. might set the table; she’ll do it if we 
dare her to, that’s certain.” 

To her own surprise Jean laughed, but not too mer- 


ANOTHER NEW ACQUAINTANCE 


157 


rily. It is hard enough to descend from Parnassus in 
the safest, gentlest, least bumping parachute, but to be 
thrown down! There’s no denying Jean was badly 
jarred. 


CHAPTER X 


jean’s vortex 


H ELEN LUMLEY had been spending a few days 
with a cousin in West Tidewater. As soon as she 
came back she hurried over to see Jean, bursting into 
the house with a call that had been these two girls’ 
signal to each other for many a day. 

“ Ha’yo, Jeannie! I’ve come to get you to join a 

fishing party this afternoon, half a dozen of- Why, 

Jean, what’s the matter ? ” cried Helen, stopping short 
in dismay. 

Jean sat in the disordered kitchen, among the wait¬ 
ing breakfast dishes, rubbing her right hand ruefully 
with her left to divert her mind from the hurt of a cut 
that she had just tied up. Dorcas was actually grave 
and quiet as she swept up the ruins of a broken dish and 
its contents; she looked at Helen and shook her head in 
a way so un-Dorcas-like that Helen was instantly 
alarmed. “Where’s Winnie? What’s wrong?” she 
asked. 

“Winnie is up-stairs,” replied Jean; her voice 
sounded as drooping as her body looked. “ I think I’m 
158 


JEAN’S VORTEX 


159 


likely to go fishing, Helen! Go dishing is more in my 
line! ” Jean waved her rag-clad finger toward the 
laden table with a sorry attempt at facetiousness. 
“ Winnie has tonsilitis, a severe case; she is up-stairs 
in bed and Dr. Blaisdell is attending her. I’m trying 
to take care of her, but I’m afraid the poor girl needs 
more care than she gets. I won’t let Dorcas go up for 
fear of contagion. So I’m not only alone again with 
my housekeeping, but I’ve a patient on my hands—and 
she’s a patient patient! Winnie really is a good crea¬ 
ture ! She tries so hard not to want anything ! I’ve 
dropped back a little since I had Winnie, so it is hard 
to work. I don’t mean to be irreverent, but to save my 
life I can’t keep out of my head that line in the Gospel: 
‘ The last end of that woman was worse than the first.’ ” 

Helen smiled, but she looked heartily sorry for Jean. 
“ Of course it is harder than ever for you now,” she 
said. 

“ And it is so boiling for the past few days ! ” sighed 
Jean. “ I could get on better if only some one would 
hold down the thermometer.” 

“ Hang it upside down,” advised Helen. 

“ Then the mercury would burst through the bulb; 
it’s bound to go up farther every day. Dorcas is good, 
though; I never knew Dorcas could be such a steady 
girl. She’s sorry for Winnie and also for her afflicted 


160 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


sister. She helps me as steadily as Steve himself ! I 
think her name is beginning to strike in,” said Jean, 
with a smile for the witch-child returning from hang¬ 
ing up her dust-pan. 

“ That’s good! ” cried Helen. “ I’ll tell you what, 
Jean, I’m not going fishing either. I’m coming here to 
make you a visit. If I’d known you were in such a 
scrape I’d have come right back from West Tidewater. 
I’m coming here to help you out; at least I can look 
after Winnie.” 

Jean started up, her face illumined by this joyful an¬ 
nouncement. 

“ Oh, Helen, I can’t let you ! Yet I can’t resist let¬ 
ting you. I am so tired! I tried to get one of our 
three Tidewater ‘ visiting help,’ as Mrs. Scanlon calls 
herself, but they were all swallowed up by the board¬ 
ing-houses, so I had to get on as best I could without 
any one. I don’t see how I possibly could let you come 
here to help me, in July, when the sailing and all the 
summer fun is at its height.” 

“ August,” Helen corrected her laconically. “ There’ll 
be plenty of fun next month. If I missed that I might 
live to see another summer; sixteen isn’t the end of 
hopes, Jean ! At any rate I am coming, and what are 
you going to do about it ? What are best friends for ? ” 

“ To be the very best things in all the world! ” cried 


JEAN’S YOETEX 


161 


Jean, emphasizing her statement with a tremendous 
hug. “ Nell, you are a C. C.—Colossal Comfort.” 

“ I hope my comfort will never ceasey! ” laughed 
Helen, seeing that Jean was reviving rapidly. “ I’ll go 
home and get some less beautiful clothes, and tell my 
family that I’ve taken a place, and I’ll be back in no 
time. I don’t see why they didn’t tell me, when I got 
home last night, that Winnie was sick and you were in 
such a pickle—you poor duck ! ” 

When Helen returned, though it was not long before 
she came back, Jean had made the kitchen tidy for the 
morning, dishes were washed, and she was beating up 
a Spanish cream for dessert, so inspiring had been 
Helen’s coming and the prospect of her reinforcement. 

Mr. Wolcott, passing through the room, paused to 
smile inquiringly at Jean, scenting in his half-conscious 
way the flavor of hope that had entered the house. 

“ Oh, father, isn’t Helen dear ? She’s coming to stay 
with me till Winnie is better ! ” cried Jean. 

“ My dear, I’m glad if you enjoy it, and I know 
you will for you have always been fond of Helen,” re¬ 
plied Mr. Wolcott, oblivious to the fact that this was 
not precisely a visit of pleasure, nor were these the cir¬ 
cumstances to make such a visit possible. “ I am sorry 
to hear that Winnie is not well—I think you told me 
that she has been indisposed for a day or so ? ” 


162 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Oh, father Wolcott! ” cried Jean. “ When she has 
been sick in bed for four days and Dr. Blaisdell has 
been coining to see her ! ” 

“ Dear me, dear me; I seem to recall it now. I hope 
you are not put about much by it, my child ? The 
young woman was a great help to you, I think you 
said. But I’ve no doubt you will manage perfectly; 
you have become such a famous manager, Jean child! ” 

Mr. Wolcott’s approving smile was serenely uncon¬ 
scious of the vortex into which the present state of 
things had plunged poor Jean. 

“ Well, father-” began Jean. Then she checked 

herself, opened and closed her lips two or three times, but 
managed to prevent herself from a vigorous statement 
of what “ managing ” was just now costing her. 

“ I have reached a most interesting stage of my 
model’s construction,” Mr. Wolcott said, with a sudden 
access of animation. “ Jean, dear, if you cared to visit 
me in the tower room by and by it might interest you, 
though you are of the literary, rather than the me¬ 
chanical turn of mind.” 

“ Yes, daddy dear, I’ll go if I can. You see there is 

a great deal to do- But I’ll call on you, little fa- 

therkins; I’ll make time. Is the model behaving it¬ 
self?” 

“Yes, my dear, it is, as you say, behaving itself 


JEAN’S VORTEX 


163 


like—well, like a model! I am elated. I am hurrying 
back to it, Jean ; I should be glad if dinner were late 
to-day.” Mr. Wolcott looked around as if he were 
seeking something, and Jean laughed over her shoulder 
at him as she ran into the pantry. 

“ You funny father-daddy kins ! That’s a moderate 
hurrying, Mr. Bentley Wolcott! ” she cried. “ No fear 
of a prompt dinner to-day, though.” 

When she came back her father had gone on his way 
and Helen was coming down the street. 

“We’re going to make a drama of this, Jean,” 
announced Helen. “You are to be the Fair Ladye 
Jehanne and I am the Lady Helena. Winnie is Queen 
Winifred, ill in her castle, where she is held a prisoner, 
poisoned by her rival for the throne. We discovered 
the plot in time to save her life, but she is weak and 
suffering from the poison, still. The reason why we 
have to cook for her, though we are court ladies, is that 
this is the castle where she is imprisoned and her 
enemies will not allow her any servants, besides we 
would rather do it, so that no more poison can be put 
into her food. Don’t you think we can get on easier, 
and mind the heat less if we make believe like that ?” 

“ It is rather a youthful game, Helen,” laughed Jean. 
“ I think it would be a strain on my mind to keep it 
up—with all the rest there is to do! ” 


164 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


But Dorcas was enchanted. “ I didn’t know you 
could think of such lovely things as that, Helen ! ” she 
cried. “ What’ll I be ? ” 

“ You must be the lady of the castle, secretly sympa¬ 
thizing with the queen, but not able to help her, because 
your cruel husband compels you to keep her imprisoned. 
Still, you do all that you can for her, secretly helping 
us to make her less unhappy, as that is the only way 
you can show your pity for her,” said Helen, with an 
inspiration, thinking that this role would serve to keep 
Dorcas in her present helpful state of mind. 

Of course the big girls did not carry out the game, 
except by fits and starts, when they remembered it. 
But Dorcas continued it and enjoyed it, except when 
the older pair exasperated her by forgetting it. 

“ Now,” said Jean, after Helen had put on her big 
apron and announced herself ready for any duty that 
Jean should impose, “ I have broth to take up to Win¬ 
nie that is fit for a queen. It has to be heated and 
perhaps some little trimmings added; it’s all ready, but 
for that. I’m thankful that I made it last night, for 
there isn’t another thing fit for a sick person. It’s in 
the closet, Helen; I brought it up from the cellar; will 
you get it, please ? ” 

“ There’s no broth here, Jean,” called Helen, after a 
moment’s search. 


JEAN’S VORTEX 


165 


“ In the aluminum kettle; you may not think it’s 
broth, because it is solid, but it is,” Jean called back. 

“ No solid here that ever can be liquid, and no alumi¬ 
num kettle,” declared Helen. 

“ Oh, Helen, that’s just like Rod; he never can find 

anything! It’s directly in front of you- Why, 

why-” Jean stopped short in her rapid onslaught 

upon the closet, intended to bring forth her broth in 
triumph. 

“ Just like Rod! Can’t see anything when it isn’t 
there! ” Helen teased. 

“ Well, I must be losing my mind ; I was sure I set 
it in there, but even the kettle is gone! ” Jean 
rumpled her hair in precisely her father’s way when he 
was puzzled. 

“ You know it would be stranger if the kettle 
were here and the broth gone,” said Helen. “ Though 
the absence of both clears Funny and Penny from 
suspicion.” 

Jean paid no attention, but hastily overhauled the 
pantry, the other cupboard, then stood in dismay, 
pummeling her brains for a further clue. 

“ What are we to give Queen Winifred if the broth 
is lost ? ” suggested Helen, thinking that a cracker in 
the hand might be better than broth in an unknown 
hiding-place. 


166 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Oh, dear me! ” Jean was distressed. “ I must 
beat up an egg to sustain her till I can do more. Isn’t 

it the queerest- Why, Dorcas, father couldn’t have 

taken it, could he ? ” 

“ The broth! ” cried Dorcas, with a shout of laughter. 
“ You don’t use broth for rudders, do you ? ” 

“ I don’t know ; not in ships’ rudders, but I’m not 
up in air-ships,” said Jean, rapidly preparing the egg 
that was to sustain poor Winnie till something else 
offered. 

“Of course you’re not up in air-ships, Jean!” 
laughed Helen. 

“ Come with me, Nell, and, after we give Winnie her 
lunch, we’ll see if it can be father who is guilty. 
Oh, me, when shall the rest of us have lunch to-day ? 
Fortunately father would rather not be bothered, and 
we can get along,” sighed Jean. 

“ Maybe father stole the broth so he wouldn’t have 
to be bothered to come down again,” said Dorcas. 

Jean prepared a small tray with a dainty napkin and 
one of the prettiest china plates with thin lettuce sand¬ 
wiches, taken right off the ice, tempting in contrast to 
the golden egg in its thin glass. 

“ At least it looks pretty, and Winnie is so grateful 
for the least thing I do! ” said Jean, as she and Helen 
went up-stairs. 


JEAN’S YOETEX 


167 


“ Winnie, are you starved ? Did you think I had 
forgotten all about you ? ” asked Jean. 

Winnie croaked badly as she replied: “ Indeed, 

Miss Jean, I knew you would never forget me. And I 
am not so to say hungry, but it’s like my mouth reached 
down to my heels. I don’t care about eating, but I’m 
more like a straw than a living female girl.” 

“ Of course, you poor thing! Sore throats make any 
one feel like a straw. I had the best broth you ever 
saw, but it’s gone; some one’s taken it, so I had to 
bring you this, to save your life a little longer,” said 
Jean. 

“ It’s Funny! ” declared Winnie, with more anima¬ 
tion. “ No cat ever was mixed up in all colors the 
way that one is and had good principles; I’ve always 
said it and I’ll stand to it.” 

“ It’s funny enough, but it isn’t Funny who did it,” 
said Jean. “ Her character is good, Winnie, and then 
she never would steal my best aluminum kettle.” 

“ Kettle and all ? ” asked Winnie. 

“Kettle and all,” assented Jean. “Poor Funny! 
You must apologize to her when you get down again, 
Winnie.” 

“I’m coming down this evening, miss, to have the 
night to rest in, if it’s too soon for me. And then to¬ 
morrow I’ll be able to be about longer, because I’ll 


168 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


know it is not the first time, so is easy for me,” said 
comical little Winnie. 

Jean set the tray on a chair by Winnie’s side, and 
she and Helen continued their travels to the tower 
room. 

They found Mr. Wolcott engrossed in his work, so 
engrossed that they had to speak three or four times 
before he was conscious of the girls’ presence. 

The octagonal room was in what looked like a wild 
confusion of all sorts of queer snarled tackle, but which 
was undoubtedly arranged, in its disarrangement, so 
that its occupant could lay his hand instantly on what¬ 
ever he wanted. A fire which was burning in a low 
brazier did not make the room warmer. It was already 
a contradiction to itself; the sea breeze cooled it from 
all sides, while the sun poured down upon its exposed 
roof. 

“ Jean, dear, I did not expect you so soon,” said Mr. 
Wolcott, when he at last realized his visitors. “ And 
Helen ? Glad to see you, children. Just a moment 
till 1 get this delicate line adjusted, then I’ll be ready 
to receive you properly.” 

“ Father, this isn’t the visit I promised to make; this 
is an errand. You didn’t meet any broth wandering 
around the house, did you ? ” asked Jean. 

“ That sentence is not good, Jean ; it conveys that the 


JEAN’S VORTEX 


169 


broth, not I, was wandering,” said Mr. Wolcott, who 
managed to hear English critically, though he missed 
much else in what was said to him. 

“That’s what I meant,” said Jean. “I had some 
broth in the cupboard, but it’s taken itself off. You 
didn’t meet it on its way, did you ? ” 

“ No, my dear. The cat ran away with the pudding 
bag string, you know. Where were your pets?” 
hinted Mr. Wolcott. 

“And the dish ran away with the spoon,” added 
Jean. “ Which is more like it. The kettle is gone this 
time. Everybody accuses Funny and Penny.” 

“ Reputation counts, my dear, and, though I am a cat 
lover, I never would attempt to deny that they often 
confused mine and thine” observed Jean’s father. 
“ Stay a moment! You say the kettle is gone, too ? 
What sort of a kettle ? ” 

“ The darling of my heart—and mother’s ; the nice, 
cozy-shaped aluminum kettle,” cried Jean, her suspicion 
becoming certainty on the spot. 

Mr. Wolcott looked dreadfully guilty and mortified, 
as he produced the missing “ darling ” from the other 
side of the brazier. 

“ I borrowed it,” he confessed. “ I needed something 
to heat and fuse certain chemicals, so I took this when 
I was in the kitchen.” 


170 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Oh, father! And it is perfectly ruined inside ! 
And to try to lay the blame on the innocent pussies ! 
What did you do with the broth ? Is that fused with 
the chemicals ? ” cried Jean. 

“No, my dear; I doubt that it would have fused, 
precisely,” replied Mr. Wolcott mildly. “I—to tell 
the truth, Jean, I threw out the contents of the kettle. 
I thought it had no value ; it looked—I’ve no doubt it 
was my mistake—but it looked greasy, my dear. I 
washed the kettle myself,” added Mr. Wolcott proudly. 

“ Cold broth does look greasy. That was Winnie’s 
sole hope, fatherkins ! ” said Jean. 

“I am profoundly sorry, Jean. I seem to do harm 
everywhere, except in this tower room,” said Mr. Wol¬ 
cott, his satisfaction instantly vanishing. “ I’ll go im¬ 
mediately to buy whatever you desire to give your 
little maid. I’ll leave my work to go.” 

Plainly Mr. Wolcott felt that greater proof of con¬ 
trition was beyond human power to give. 

Jean hugged him on the spot. “ You dear, plaintive 
fatherkins ! ” she cried. “ You’ll not go an inch! I’ll 
send a boy after anything I need—if ever one of the 
boys comes in. You’re such a lovable darling, only 
you’re not meant to be anything but a genius, in a 
tower room, ‘ up above the world so high,’ just like the 
twinkling little star! You’re to come down in half an 


JEAN’S VORTEX 


171 


hour—don’t forget, Bentley Wolcott, dear! There’s to 
be a dinner of herbs, that means lettuce sandwiches and 
sardines—in half an hour. And you may as well keep 
the aluminum kettle, fatherkins; it’s no good, except 
for fusing, now. 

“Isn’t father lovely ? ” Jean demanded of Helen as 
they went down the narrow, winding stairs from the 
tower room, having given her father a farewell hug 
and shake. 

Helen had watched the little scene with amused 
pleasure, thinking that no other father and daughter 
in all the Tidewaters were like this pair. 

“Don’t you know, I think he’s like one of those 
sweet cherubs, all head and wings, no feet on the ground 
—nor anywhere else.” 

Helen laughed so hard that she slipped off one of the 
steps and barely saved herself from a serious tumble. 

“Do you know what a nice-funny family you all 
are ? ” she cried. “ Dorcas is a case, and you’re not a 
bit like a girl of sixteen. No other girl says the sort of 
things you do. And there’s your father, and Rod is a 
sort of comet.” 

“ Mother and Steve are just plain ‘ best folks ’! I 
suppose that’s all true. But I’m 4 going on seventeen,’ 
Nell, my chum, and I’m not nearly as queer as I was. 
Who is down-stairs ? ” Jean paused to listen but some 


172 HER DAUGHTER JEAN 

one, who had spoken to the cat, relapsed into 
silence. 

“Oh, Step-grand! You frightened me,” Jean said 
descending further and spying a skirt she recognized. 
“ I was afraid it was real company. It’s been a dread¬ 
ful day, but Helen has come to stay, and Winnie’s bet¬ 
ter, so the worst is over.” 

“ I brought beef tea for Winnie,” announced Mrs. 
Claudia Wolcott, and Jean laughed at the timeliness of 
the gift. “ I passed Dorcas on the way here. She is 
with the Cross well children, and she has torn her dress.” 

“ Then the worst is really over! ” cried Jean. “Dor¬ 
cas has been an angel. Dorcas is like the 4 knee deeps ’ 
in March; when you hear them you know spring is 
coming, and when Dorcas is good and quiet it means a 
frost! If she’s noisy and naughty then the bad weather 
is over.” 

“ I’m glad if you can derive comfort from her symp¬ 
toms,” said Mrs. Claudia with the tiny laugh that was 
her tribute to Jean’s cleverness. 


CHAPTER XI 
jean’s fears take form 


O NE of the best, as well as one of the saddest facts 
about life is that nothing in it lasts long. Con¬ 
stantly shifting and changing, joys diminish, fade and 
are past. Yet, again, “ weeping may endure for a 
night, but joy cometh in the morning.” So, though 
happiness must be held with fear, sorrow again gives 
place to happiness, and the total balance of light and 
shade makes life beautiful and interesting. Whether 
it be the grief that crushes the heart, or the annoyances 
that shatter the nerves, nothing lasts long, and so all 
things are endurable. 

Jean’s domestic troubles of that summer reached a 
climax when faithful Winnie fell ill, but after ten days 
of struggling through the most heated period of that 
season, with Winnie ill and no one to help her, till 
Helen came to her rescue, Jean found her burden 
growing lighter again. 

Winnie recovered rapidly and, after Winnie was able 
to resume her work, Jean was set free to enjoy part of 
the good times which summer brought to Tidewater 
by the sea. Miss Balfour had settled down to spend 
173 


174 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


the whole season in the lovable, sleepy old town which 
had won her heart; she was fond of Jean and greatly 
interested in her. Jean was made happy by her friend¬ 
ship; she poured out reams of description of this friendly 
author to her mother, repeating word for word on 
paper most of their conversations. Jean had a habit 
of telling her mother every detail of all that she did, 
a habit that had never been broken from her childhood, 
now continued by the pen. Just what all the boys 
and girls said and did, precisely what happened at 
every party she went to, in every game she played, in 
every talk she shared, Jean talked over with her 
mother, as less blessed girls do with their mates. 
Mother and daughter were not only one in age, but 
in interests; their intimacy was perfect. Not till years 
later would Jean realize how rare and how protective, 
how beautiful, was this confidence that made every 
pleasure that came to the girl only half enjoyed till 
she and her mother had thus talked it over. 

It was the first day of August and Jean was out in 
the yard rapturously sniffing her white lilies. No one 
ever quite enjoys the fragrance of flowers till they are 
the result of such sacrificing care as Jean had bestowed 
on the flowers which were now rioting in her flower 
beds. 

Rod sauntered in at the gate with his straw hat on 


JEAN’S FEARS TAKE FORM 


175 


the back of his head, framing his handsome, flushed 
face. Jean looked up at him with a bright s mil e. 

“ Rod, aren’t they just actual blessings! ” she cried. 

Rod’s attitude to the flowers was the opposite of 
Jean’s; they reminded him of neglect, that his sister, 
with all her other cares, had done what he had prom¬ 
ised to do—and had failed to do—for these abundant 
blossoms. 

“Hello, Jean. Yes, they’re all right,” said Rod. 
“But sit down a minute; I want to tell you some¬ 
thing.” 

“ I can’t sit down, Rod. I’ve had a man here trying 
to get me to subscribe to the most gilded set of books 
you ever saw, and neither a derrick, nor dynamite 
could have got him to go, though I told him I didn’t 
like the books one bit. So I’ve lots to do; I can’t sit 
down.” Nevertheless, as Jean spoke she dropped down 
on the upper step and clasped her knees, ready to listen. 
“ Dinner will be late if I don’t help Winnie,” she 
added, as a balm to her conscience which bade her not 
to delay. 

“ Oh, well, we’re not such a killing punctual family! ” 
observed Rodney with truth. “A few minutes more 
or less won’t matter with dinner. There’s something 
important to tell you about, honest. Something that 
may make a lot of difference.” 


176 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Oh, Rod, I oughtn’t! Talk fast, then,” sighed 
Jean. 

“Well,” said Rod, settling himself beside Jean, 
stretched out, his elbows on the step above his seat, 
his feet resting on the lower step, and showing a 
sudden embarrassment, “ I’ve known about it some 
time, but I couldn’t tell you before. You know I did 
give you a hint that Anthony Dillon knew a thing or 
two about business.” 

“ Anthony Dillon—Mr. Dillon ! Is what you have 
to tell me about him ? ” asked Jean. 

“ I should say it was! But it has just as much to 
do with us—more. He has a scheme that is great. 
He wants to buy this house,” said Rod. 

“Buy it! Buy this house! Well, he can’t,” cried 
Jean. 

“ Now don’t you go to making up your mind before¬ 
hand, but listen,” exclaimed Rod impatiently. “ He is 
willing to give us three thousand dollars for the whole 
place, house and fourteen acres—isn’t it? That’s a 
good price. He says he may never get the worth of 
the money; it’s a risk, he says, but he’s willing to take 
the risk, and he won’t do anything mean with us— 
with me, his friend.” The boy fairly swaggered with 
importance as he lay the length of the steps. “ Tony 
tells me, frankly, that he hopes to make a good thing 


JEAN’S FEARS TAKE FORM 


177 


of it, but he may lose—that’s his luck. All we have 
to do is to take up with his offer. We aren’t cheating 
him if it’s more than it’s worth, and we haven’t any¬ 
thing to say if he makes money out of it; that’s his 
luck, as I said before; it’s perfectly fair and above¬ 
board on both sides. Tony’s idea is to put up some 
cottages and bungalows for summer people and trust 
to luck to making them pay. He’s been sounding 
father, and you know how father is—no more business 
in him than in a downy chick ! Tony sees there may 
be trouble in getting father to sell, so he says if I can 
persuade father into it, he’ll see that I get a commis¬ 
sion for my trouble, if the thing goes through.” 

“ Rodney Wolcott! Isn’t that all you want to know 
about the plan ? About Anthony Dillon, too ? ” cried 
Jean, stiff and alert in attitude as she heard her 
brother’s story, her eyes flashing, her cheeks burning. 
“ That man offers you—you, a boy!—a bribe to per¬ 
suade your father, your own father, into doing some¬ 
thing he wants him to do! If I had been a boy and 
any one had made me such a proposal, I think I’d have 
knocked him down. It’s altogether too much like a 
bribe to commit treason.” 

“ Oh, gee! ” groaned Rod, in utter disgust. “ For 
goodness’ sake, Jean, do be sensible! Flying off like 
that! Do you think you’re one of the Waverley novels, 


178 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


all stuff and romance, or do you think you’re a twen¬ 
tieth century American ? You can’t talk business with 
a woman anyhow! ” 

Jean laughed, a quick, brief little laugh, half scorn, 
half amusement. 

“ Perhaps a man knows more about business than a 
woman; few women in their own homes have much 
chance to learn much about business. But I doubt if 
an inexperienced boy knows much more about it than 
his sister, fifteen months older than he is; I imagine 
they’re about on an equally ignorant business standing,” 
she said. “ And as to the romance of the Middle Ages 
and the twentieth-century American, Rodney, honor is 
honor, and loyalty hasn’t gone out of fashion. Your 
friend Dillon knows a little too much about business 
and not enough about a boy’s duty to his father, Rod. 
And you’re foolish enough to let him flatter you into 
being his cat, and you lend him your paw to pull his 
chestnuts out of the fire! A commission paid to you 
for bringing father to see it his way ! ” 

“ Jiminy crickets, Jean, don’t you suppose I’d hand 
over anything I got to father ? ” demanded Rod. 

“ Dear Rod, of course you would ! ” cried Jean, see¬ 
ing that it would be wiser to hide something of what 
she felt and not leave all the admiration of Rod to 
Anthony Dillon, for the boy’s conceit was wherein his 


JEAN’S FEAES TAKE FOEM 


179 


danger lay. “ There never was a mean spot in you; 
that isn’t the point. Of course you would share any¬ 
thing you had with us, but can’t you see, Eod ? You 
are too young to coax father into a serious step. And 
then look at the plan ! Of course I’m not up in business 
matters, but I’ve helped mother with accounts and I 
know she always said it was a lucky thing we had a 
home; the taxes are not as heavy as rent would be. 
If we sold this house, father being the dreamer he is, 
we would be dreadfully cramped. We’d have only a 
hundred and fifty dollars a year interest on the money 
the house brought; the house is worth more than that 
to us. If father were willing to sell, if this Dillon had 
got him interested in his scheme—and he easily might 
have, father being father !—then it would have been for 
us to have tried to get him to keep the house. Imagine 
what mother would say if she knew! Mr. Dillon had 
no right to get a boy like you to be a sort of secret 
partner! ” Jean’s indignation blazed up again as she 
ended. 

“ You never did like Tony,” growled Eod sulkily. 

“And if I did not like him this makes me proud 
of my instinct,” retorted Jean. “No one who was 
straight would offer a boy a commission for getting 
his father to do such a thing as this. It is a bribe 
for you to work against father. No matter if it is 


180 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


better for us to sell, it isn’t right to get you to 
work secretly for an outsider. Try to look at it 
fairly, Rod; try to realize how young you and I are. 
Don’t think of yourself as a clever young man, but as 
a nice, bright boy, and you’ll see it’s poor business for a 
grown man to use you—to bribe you—to help him! 
But, Rod, you are old enough to understand how bad 
it would be for us to lose our home; it is hard enough 
for us to manage as it is.” 

“ It is you who don’t understand. You have always 
been a dreamer like father, ’way up in the clouds. 
Every one says so,” said the boy impatiently. “This 
is a chance to sell the old house for a good price, to 
make some money, that’s what it is, and if I did get 
into it—if Tony gave me some stock of the company, 
or something like that, it would be for the good of the 
whole family.” 

Rod spoke importantly, yet this was a good thing to 
say. Jean rose and laid her hand on her brother’s 
shoulder kindly, feeling years older than Rod, whose 
self-satisfaction was exceedingly crude and boyish. 

“ Rodney, dear,” she said, “ that is a nice spirit, and 
I know you mean exactly what you say, but you are 
altogether wrong. Dreamer or not—and I haven’t been 
dreaming lately, you must admit that—but dreamer or 
not, I can see clearly how fatal it would be to the Wol- 


JEAN’S FEARS TAKE FORM 


181 


cotts to exchange their old home for three thousand 
dollars—or for twice that. Tell Mr. Dillon that we 
would not sell, that you don’t want to coax father into 
it, but even if you did want him to sell, you couldn’t 
possibly act as an agent for some one else, without your 
father’s knowing your bargain with the outsider.” 

Rodney shook olf Jean’s hand. “ I shall do my very 
best to work father up into being so wild about the 
scheme that nothing could keep him from selling,” de¬ 
clared the boy defiantly. “ And, if I know anything 
about my father, I’ll succeed. He depends on my judg¬ 
ment more than you know. Father thinks I’m just 
about it, if you want to be told the truth.” 

Jean knew that this was the truth. Rod’s defiance 
frightened her; at the same time it aroused her to 
indignation that Rod could be so blinded, could be so 
utterly unable to feel the wrong of the position he had 
taken. Once more her eyes blazed fire ; there was no 
trace in her now of Jean, the dreamer. 

“ If you do this, Rodney, I shall leave no stone un¬ 
turned to defeat you,” she cried. “ I promised mother 
I’d keep house faithfully for her till she came back. 
I’ll keep her house for her in another sense, Rod ! Oh, 
Rod, Rod, how can you let this stranger blind you, 
deaden your sense of honor, as he has done ? ” 

“ Father doesn’t know what’s good for us; there’s no 


182 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


earthly reason why a man’s son shouldn’t show him a 
good thing,” said Rod, quoting Anthony Dillon, as Jean 
felt sure. “ I can’t help being under sixteen; I’m just 
as much my father’s son as if I was thirty. If I was 
thirty, you’d think it was all right for me to get father 
to go into a good thing, if I knew about it and he 
didn’t. You’re nothing but a moonstruck girl. I 
guess it’s lucky I do go ahead and have a friend like 
Tony to put me wise to a trick or two! ” muttered 
Rod wrathfully. And Jean went quickly into the 
house without another word. 

“Miss Jean,” said Winnie, as Jean, short of breath 
and with reddened cheeks, flashed into the kitchen, 
“ there is a young man waiting for you in the sitting- 
room, and I will not deceive you, Miss Jean; it is Mr. 
Cathcart. He came around this way and we both 
heard you talking, out on the steps, on the other side, 
with Master Rodney. Said Mr. Cathcart: ‘Jean is en¬ 
gaged in bringing up Rodney. I should not like to in¬ 
terfere with what she is saying.’ And he laughed, Miss 
Jean, for it sounded as if you were annoyed. Said Mr. 
Cathcart further: ‘ I will go into the house, Winnie, 
and improve my mind with a book. Tell your Miss 
Jean, when she comes in, that I am here, if you please.’ 
So I have told you, Miss Jean, and I would like to say 
to you that I have done everything that needs to be 


JEAN’S FEARS TAKE FORM 


183 


done, and that you need not think of helping me, for 
dinner will be ready in time and satisfactory, as I 
make bold to be sure and certain.” 

“Thank you, Winnie. You are such a comfort! 
But I’m ‘ sure and certain 9 myself that Mr. Cathcart 
will not keep me long,” laughed Jean. 

“ Hallo, Jean! ” said Roger, looking up as Jean 
entered. “ Seems funny to be waiting in the parlor, 
like a regular, proper caller.” 

“ Why did you wait here ? Rod and I were out¬ 
side,” returned Jean, feeling so glad to see her old 
chum, and to see him his old cordial self, that her dis¬ 
turbance of mind began to fade at once. 

“ That’s why ! ” laughed Roger. “ Sounded as if you 
were taking your mother’s place and scolding poor 
Rod.” 

“ Mother never scolds. Neither was I,” said Jean, 
indifferent to sentence construction. “ But I did say 
all I could to Rod; he needs it.” 

“ Nothing the matter ? ” hinted Roger. 

“ Of course there is! ” cried Jean vehemently. 
“ That Anthony Dillon is the matter, has been ever 
since he came! Rod is bewitched. He flatters the 
boy till he is putty.” 

“I thought you liked him better, Jean,” said 
Roger beaming. “ He’s here a lot; so much that I 


184 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


haven’t cared about coming lately. I don’t like him 
myself.” 

“I like him better!” cried Jean. “I dislike him 
better! I’ve disliked him from the first, and now I 
know why I do; I didn’t know why before, but that 
didn’t alter it. I’d love to tell you about it, Roger, 
but I suppose I ought to wait till I see how it comes 
out, as it’s Rod’s affair. I imagine I’ll have to tell 
you about it, some day; I’m afraid it won’t come out, 
and I’ll need help.” 

“ For whatever you want apply here! ” said Roger, 
tapping himself on the chest. “ Some of the Tidewater 
fellows have seen things in the beautiful Dillon that 
they don’t admire. I’m precious glad you haven’t 
altered your opinion. But we won’t waste time talk¬ 
ing about that stranger in our midst—as the Tidewater 
Sentinal would put it, like a cannibal! If he bothers 
you, Jean, or is a bad influence over Rod, I’ll wish he 
were eaten up ! What I came for is to take you sail¬ 
ing. I’ve got a big lunch on the Maid of Orleans, 
and mother is going, and Mrs. Lumley and Helen. 
We’re going to make the light and come up on the 
tide to-night, get in about nine or so.” 

“ Oh, Roger, and it’s so long since I went as far as 
that! ” sighed Jean. “ I wonder if I might ? ” 

“ You might not refuse ! ” said Roger. “ Get on 


JEAN’S FEAES TAKE FOEM 


185 


your long coat and your cap, Jean, and be quick about 
it. We’ve lost time already, though I did set two as 
the hour for sailing. Take a piece of pie, or something, 
in your lily-white hand and eat on the way; there’s 
enough on the Maid for a small army to eat; dinner 
won’t be missed by you, I’ll wager.” 

“ I’ve got to say yes ! ” cried Jean, and ran off to 
tell Winnie to look after her family and hastily to 
make herself ready for an afternoon and evening of 
sailing. 

“ Miss Jean,” said funny Winnie, with solemn ap¬ 
proval, u I will not let your father want for a thing, 
even though he would not notice it, and I will keep 
my eye on Dorcas just as steady as her never-standing- 
stillness will let me. Give yourself no concern, but 
enjoy your voyages heedlessly. Faithful and patient 
were you to me when I had tonsilitis in my throat, and 
faithful will I be while you are gone.” 

Jean ran laughing away, thanking Winnie, but con¬ 
vulsed over her formidable array of words. 

The Maid of Orleans was a white little, tight little 
craft of speed and endurance. She lay at her moor¬ 
ings off shore, and Roger rowed his party out to her 
in two installments; Mrs. Lumley and his mother first, 
the two girls last, because he had some of the hampers 
containing his boasted great supply of provisions to 


186 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


transport also. The division was necessary also be¬ 
cause Loyal, Roger’s big, devoted spaniel, had to share 
the sail, for sailing was his harmless mania and Roger’s 
withdrawal from his sight a sorrow so great that it 
never was inflicted upon him without necessity. 

Roger made the Maid’s tender fast to the moorings, 
got up sail—with Helen’s and Jean’s help, for they were 
both “ seaworthy,” as Roger said—and the white cat- 
boat started off with the southwesterly breeze that made 
her lie over just enough to send the foam across her 
bow, as she cut through the water with her sail close 
hauled. 

Anthony Dillon, the fear of his succeeding with her 
father, the blindness of Rod’s infatuation all dropped 
back into unreality for Jean. There is a magic in cast¬ 
ing off from land that sends trouble to the land of dreams. 
The reaction from her recent excitement told in Jean’s 
silence. All the downward sail she leaned on the lee¬ 
ward side of the fleet little craft, dabbling her hands 
over the rail in the water, watching it flash over the 
bow in the sunlight, restfully hypnotized by the spell of 
sailing. 

Mrs. Cathcart and Mrs. Lumley chatted together, 
seated high on the windward side of the Maid of 
Orleans / Helen and Roger joked and made merry in 
the stern, though Roger held the tiller in one hand and 





fi' H » Wli» ri t i " i 




She Cut Through the Water with Her Sait, Close Hauled 




















































JEAN’S FEARS TAKE FORM 


187 


the main sheet in the other. It was a tacking and gusty 
breeze that required constant letting out and hauling 
the sail, as the boat went closer to the wind, or freer of 
it. Loyal sat in the bow, in the perilously small space 
before the mast, erect, silent, alert, happy, scenting the 
air with a restless nose, approving of the sea and of his 
master’s seamanship with all his appreciative heart. 
And Jean, like the dog, kept silence and basked in the 
happiness of being alive between the two spaces of sky 
and ocean. 

With the turn of the tide and the rising of a young 
moon, the Maid of Orleans began to beat homeward, 
slowly, until the wind shifted more easterly and let her 
come up almost free of the wind. 

They came up singing, for the two mothers had not 
forgotten the proper way to sail up the homeward course, 
sailing to the sound of music being the only right way of 
sailing home at night. 

“ Had a good time, Jeannie ? ” asked Roger, as he 
prepared to luff for his moorings. 

“ Perfectly fine ! ” sighed Jean, satisfiedly. 

“ Want one of my marbles ? ” laughed Roger as they 
landed, this being the form in which, as a small boy, he 
had invariably offered Jean consolation when she cried. 

“ Don’t need a marble, too happy as it is,” said Jean, 
stepping ashore. 


CHAPTER XII 


jean’s plot 


“ T ETTER from mother, Proxy-Jean,” announced 
JL/ Steve, coming into the house early in the morn¬ 
ing. “They overlooked it, somehow, last night and 
Mr. Beal called to me, when I was going by just now 
and waved it at me.” 

“ Breakfast is ready, Steve,” said Jean, slitting the 
envelope with a pin that she removed from her collar 
for that purpose. “ Steve, I must talk to father.” 

“ Yes,” nodded Steve, not requiring to be told why. 
“ You’ve got to find out whether he’s weakening. Rod’s 

doing his best and I’m afraid- What’s she say ? ” 

“ It isn’t more than a note,” said Jean, turning back to 
the first page of her letter. “ ‘ My dear little house¬ 
keeper,’ ” she read. “ ‘ It is not because I have anything 
to add to yesterday’s long letter that I am writing, but 
only because there is a chance for me to send to the 
post-office this morning, and I like to use almost every 
such chance to speak to one of you at home. I am 
better, dear, decidedly better. It has been longer than 
I expected it to be since I left home, but they tell me 
188 


JEAN’S PLOT 


189 


here that I am fortunate to be hoping, as I am, to return 
before winter. Jean, dear, what queer things we 
women are, clinging to inanimate, as well as to animate 
objects we love! When I think of coming home, not 
only each one of you leaps before my eyes, and I see 
you illumined, shining with my own joy of anticipation 
of actually seeing you, but the house itself, that dear, 
venerable old Wolcott home of ours, comes before me 
like a living thing, like one of the family that it shelters. 
It makes my heart beat fast to think of the day when I 
shall come back to you, and when I think of it, I think 
of the dignified, beloved old house as one of those who 
make up the ‘you ’ I long for with all my might. Cu¬ 
rious, how alive, endowed with a personality a house 
becomes! But our house has been made alive by 
generations of Wolcott women’s loving care—and I’m 
quite sure those who were Wolcott women by marriage, 
and not blood—like me—loved it fully as well as its 
own daughters did.’ ” 

The letter ended with a few warm words of love for 
her family from the dear, distant mother, and Jean, 
having read them, folded it and looked at Steve. 

“ Imagine her coming home to another house ! Im¬ 
agine writing her that it was to be sold ! ” Jean cried. 

Steve’s strong face was flushed ; it expressed volumes 
that he did not say. 


190 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ We’ll put up a stiff fight, Jean,” he said. “ We’ll 
get Step-grand to help, if we need her. If father 
wanted to sell the house I suppose we ought to want 
him to do it, but he will be as sorry as anything, after¬ 
ward, if he does. He’d be just talked into it. Mother 
wouldn’t have to sign the deed. We had that law in 
school. But she would.” 

“Of course she would,” said Jean. “Mother would 
never refuse to let father sell the Wolcott house; she 
wouldn’t refuse to let him do anything he had set his 
heart on. Well, we’ll hope father won’t want to sell; 
I’ll try to find out whether he is altering his mind.” 

Mr. Wolcott was late to breakfast that morning. 
He had gone to walk and had overstayed his hour, 
forgetting all about meal-time when cloud-drifts, of a 
peculiar movement, caught his attention and held him 
mentally testing his air-ship rudder against their eddy- 
ings. 

He came in late and apologetic, but Jean was glad 
that his delay had made the boys and Dorcas have 
finished their meal and gone before their father re¬ 
turned. The night before Mr. Wolcott had sat long 
with Mr. Dillon and Rodney out on the cliff, beyond 
and out of hearing of the house. Rod seemed to have 
done most of the talking, but Jean, watching anxiously, 
had seen that Mr. Dillon threw in an occasional remark 


JEAN’S PLOT 


191 


to which her father had turned attentively. It seemed 
to her, too, that he listened to Rod with another air 
from the indulgent pride with which he had been 
giving ear to the boy, a pride that did not include 
approval of the deductions drawn by the boy’s clever¬ 
ness, though that he enjoyed. Last night Mr. Wolcott 
had harkened with an increasingly alert manner, had 
asked questions and had nodded his head at the an¬ 
swers. Jean had seen this forebodingly, while she and 
Steve kept each other silent company, staid, sensible 
Steve, who saw things clearly, as Rod never would, in 
spite of his brilliance and more years. To confirm 
Jean’s fear that at last Rod was making headway with 
his father, the boy had not been able to deny himself 
a vaunt as he passed her on the stairs, going up to bed, 
two steps at a time. 

“ In the bright lexicon of this bright youth there’s 
no such word as fail, Miss Jean,” Rod had crowed. 

To which Jean had vouchsafed no reply other than 
an inward one, but the boast had left her more than 
ever anxious. 

After her father had eaten a breakfast that he 
plainly found good, Jean bent herself to her task of 
learning just how much mischief had been done. As 
she poured the last half cup of coffee with which 
Mr. Wolcott always liked to end breakfast, she passed 


192 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


it to him with a smile, and said, in that blandishing 
tone that the best, as well as the youngest of women 
have instinctively used since the time of Eve, for special 
ends: “ As much sugar as you want, father ? And no 
more cream ? Just as you like it, and as mother would 
pour it ? That’s good ! Then I wonder if you’d mind 
telling me whether Mr. Dillon has discovered a new 
argument to give Rod, to prove that we ought to be 
made homeless ? ” 

“ Oh, now, now, Jean ! Not precisely homeless, my 
dear girl; not homeless, you know!” protested Mr. 
Wolcott. “Because there would be no difficulty in 
having a home, when we were wealthy. Fancy the 
Wolcott family wealthy, Jean! Not but that it has 
long been my dream to make it so, and I have believed 
that I should, ultimately, succeed, but now the way is 
opened to me by an entirely unexpected path. Jean, 
you hardly could realize, my child, how sorry I have 
been to think that I was not as successful as other men 
in making life smooth for my dear ones. I think I 
remember saying something like this to you, not long 
ago. Now, it may be, that a stranger is going to set 
me in the way of doing what I desire—though later 
on, I can’t tell how soon, but later on, I must have 
succeeded, in the only way I foresaw.” Mr. Wolcott’s 
animation died out toward the close of his sentence, 


JEAN’S PLOT 


193 


and his eyes took on that far-away look that his chil¬ 
dren knew so well. 

Jean regarded him with dismay. She felt a surge 
of loving pity in the midst of the distress with which 
his words filled her. Dorcas was less unfitted to pro¬ 
tect her own interests than this unworldly, childlike 
man! 

“ Father! Why do you speak as if you were chang¬ 
ing your mind ? As if you were half inclined to do as 
this Dillon wants you to do?” she cried in distress. 
“ You have never tolerated the idea of selling the house 
before—it is selling the house you meant, by what you 
just said ? ” 

“ Yes, my dear, it is selling the house. I never can 
like the idea, you know; the old Wolcott house ! But 
I see it differently; I mean to be practical,” said 
Mr. Wolcott. 

The mere word on his lips, wreathed with his dreamy 
smile, was pitifully absurd. Jean braced herself to an¬ 
swer, to remonstrate in effective terms. 

“But, father dearest, it isn’t practical to sell this 
house, not unless it were sold for a large sum,” she 
said. “ The interest on three thousand dollars—that’s 
all Mr. Dillon offered—is only a hundred and fifty dol¬ 
lars a year, at five per cent. You see I am getting 
businesslike, father! ” Jean interrupted herself to laugh 


194 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


and lean toward her father coaxingly, hoping that he 
might be pleased and surprised to find this other 
dreamer of the household talking sensibly, and so give 
her some of the loving pride and the power to influence 
him which that pride included, which he gave to Rod¬ 
ney. “ How could we get as much out of a hundred 
and fifty dollars as this dear, queer, rambling old house 
gives us ? Not to speak of our love for a house that 
has held a Wolcott ever since Braddock miscalculated 
so seriously ? ” 

“Sentiment must not blind one’s eyes to his best 
interest, my dear,” said Mr. Wolcott, and Jean knew 
that this uncharacteristic dictum had originated in 
Anthony Dillon’s mind, not in her father’s. 

“ I had a short letter from mother this very morning, 
father. Let me read you what she happened to say 
about the house, now, when it is in danger. Danger 
she has no sort of knowledge is threatening,” said Jean, 
her voice quivering. “ You will see how she feels to 
this blessed old home.” And she read her father the 
letter that she had read to Steve. “ Suppose she had 
to be told that it was to be sold, father! ” said Jean, as 
she ended. 

“My dear little girl,” said Mr. Wolcott, with great 
kindness, but with an air of finding Jean childish and 
unreasonable, “ your mother is immensely practical. 


JEAN’S PLOT 


195 


All our married life it has been she, not I, who has been 
the burden-bearer. I seem to be unconscious of this; 
often I am unconscious of it, I must be honest enough 
to admit, but there are times when I perceive it, with 
great regret. If your mother were made to see that it 
was for the interest of her children that the old house 
were sold, though she might go out of it with tears, 
they would soon dry, for she is preeminently a devoted 
woman, who cares more for the welfare of her dear 
ones than for any other earthly object. I have consid¬ 
ered your mother’s attitude in the matter and, though 
I admit it would cost her something to give up this 
house—as it would all of us, as it would all of us !—she 
would be reconciled, glad of the sacrifice, if she were 
shown it was for the best.” 

“ Oh, father, maybe, but it would not be for the best; 
it would be a great misfortune! The money is not 
enough to take the place of the house,” cried Jean. 

“ Ah, my dear, now we are coming to the point! ” 
cried Mr. Wolcott delightedly. “ I must tell you that 
I am proud of my girl, proud and surprised, to find her 
so quick-witted, showing such excellent judgment when 
we thought her only a poet—and such a young poet! 
You are right as to the comparative value to us of the 
place and the sum of money which Mr. Dillon at first 
offered for it. At first, mark you, Jean! He did not 


196 


HER DAUGHTER JEAX 


see his way, or perhaps did not think it necessary, to 
offer more. But he found that I was not inclined to 
entertain his offer, and now he offers me a share in the 
profits which he expects to make here; he has confided 
his whole plan to me. It is an excellent plan, Jean. 
He proposes to build on our land a group of summer 
cottages, turning this old house into a communal dining- 
hall, on its lower floor, with its chambers rented, proba¬ 
bly. The tenants of the cottages would use this dining¬ 
room, not cook for themselves. Mr. Dillon says that 
he has reasons for being certain that this enterprise 
would return to its stockholders at least ten per cent, 
on the investment. He repeats his offer to me of three 
thousand dollars for the place, but he also offers me a 
chance to ‘ come in on the ground floor,’ as he quaintly 
puts it, as a stockholder in the enterprise. He compli¬ 
ments me, Jean, on my business astuteness in holding 
out for better terms. I need not tell you, my daughter, 
that I was doing nothing of the sort, but I am rather 
pleased that this sharp young man considers me less 
dull in business matters than Tidewater people have 
called me.” 

Jean, listening in silence, saw that this was only too 
true. Mr. Wolcott’s pleasure in his own sharpness was 
so like a child’s delight in reaching up to its elders that 
her heart smote her with fear and pity, and her wrath 


JEAN’S PLOT 


197 


burned up, justly. She hotly resented the craft that 
played upon this childlike nature, and she felt abso¬ 
lutely sure that there was actual dishonesty behind the 
craft. 

“ No honest man would need to try to trick father,” 
she thought intolerantly. What she said, with a com¬ 
mendable effort to speak quietly, not to repulse her 
father, was: “Then you think seriously of selling, 
father ? I wish there was any hope that you would 
heed me when I beg, beg you not to sell.” 

“ Dear little Jean, a girl of sixteen, or so, is not fit to 
judge these questions, and you, of all girls, are least ex¬ 
perienced in business. I think most favorably of ac¬ 
cepting this last offer; indeed I have almost made up 
my mind to go in with Mr. Dillon on these latter fa¬ 
vorable terms,” said Mr. Wolcott. 

Jean did not reply. She knew that protest was worse 
than useless; her father possessed that form of im¬ 
movability that comes from inertia. He was one of 
those gentle people who take up a position and hold it 
with perfect mildness, but hold it, and who so rarely 
disturb themselves to the point of taking a great reso¬ 
lution that having taken it, they will not abandon it. 
When Mr. Wolcott had slowly set his mind upon a thing 
there it rested more firmly than the mind of a blusterer 
would rest. 


198 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


After breakfast Jean hurriedly whisked through her 
morning tasks, bribing Dorcas to help her with the 
promise of a drive. Then she got Steve to harness Old 
King Cole for her and she drove away, with Dorcas, in 
pursuit of her step-grandmother, Mrs. Claudia Wolcott. 

“ Anything wrong ? ” demanded that vigorous lady, 
coming out to welcome the girls in this wise as they 
drove up to her door. 

“Not yet, Step-grand, but there is going to be,” said 
Jean, springing lightly over the wheel. “Dorcas, 
please drive around to the barn and amuse yourself 
a while. I came to talk business with Step-grand.” 

“ I should as soon have looked for that statement 
from that patchwork kitten you call Funny,” said Mrs. 
Claudia, but her eyes expressed the approval of Jean 
that her lips withheld. “ Walk into my parlor, Miss 
Fly. I am sure that you are doomed to be the fly, if 
you are going to attempt business.” 

“ I’m not so sure of that as I would have been once, 
Step-grand,” returned Jean. “Wait till you hear my 
story. I think I’m an insect that doesn’t appear in the 
poem; one that rescues the fly.” 

“ Tell me,” said Mrs. Wolcott curtly, motioning Jean 
to a seat in the window and giving her a huge palm- 
leaf fan. Then Jean told her the whole story of the 
menace to the old Wolcott house, from the first dawn of 


JEAN’S PLOT 


199 


her unfounded fear, to her too certain knowledge that 
her instinct had been true. 

“ Do you think I am wrong ? ” she ended. 

“ I think that you are undoubtedly perfectly right, 
and I am surprised and pleased to find you so wide¬ 
awake,” approved Mrs. Claudia. “ But there is no need 
of being so frightened. Your father cannot sell the 
house without his wife’s consent, so there’s no occasion 
for anxiety. Your mother can simply refuse that con¬ 
sent.” 

“ Oh, but, Step-grand, dear, you know mother would 
never, never do that! ” cried Jean. “ Father would 
write her that he was determined on this step and she 
would never use her power to thwart him—especially 
as that house belonged to the Wolcott family, not to her 
ancestors. No matter how sure she was of its being a 
mistake, she would sign the deed, if father insisted, 
after she had tried to persuade him to keep the house.” 

“Well,” admitted Mrs. Wolcott, “on the whole I 
suppose any decent woman would. What is it you 
want me to do ? I know you have some sort of plan, 
and that I’m in it.” 

“ Ask father to come here to pay you a short visit,” 
said Jean, with the promptness of one who had laid 
her plan thoroughly. “ Now, wait a minute, dear Step- 
grand ! I know you are going to say it would do no good, 


200 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


but it would ; it would do lots of good. First of all, it 
would divert father’s mind from the house; you know 
he is all taken up with whatever is before him at the 
time. Then it would keep him out of the way of Rod 
and this smooth-tongued young man, who is making 
Rod a cat’s-paw for a while. And last—and this may 
be the best reason of all—it would give me more time 
to try to find out something about this Dillon.” 

“Well, Jean, if you keep on developing this side of 
yourself I shall need positive proof of your identity 
before I dare salute you by your name ! ” cried Jean’s 
step-grandmother in high delight. “ Certainly I will 
ask your father here. I will bid him bring his models 
and establish himself in my cupola. Fortunately I had 
a fright the other night; a man came peering in at my 
window. I will ask your father to protect me.” She 
laughed and Jean laughed with her. Mrs. Claudia 
was so resolute, so formidable a gentlewoman that 
the notion of her mild stepson as a protector for her 
was funny. “ And after I get him here to protect me 
I will, secretly, protect him. Rod shall not have a 
chance to talk to him alone, and as to that suave out- 
lander, whom you and I distinguished ourselves by 
disliking before we had any ground for it, he shall not 
come here at all.” 

“ Thank you, Step-grand, dear ; I knew you’d help 


JEAN’S PLOT 


201 


me. I don’t know what I should have done without 
you. You know how carried away father is by a new 
scheme, unless he is diverted, and how he forgets it 
when he is diverted,” said Jean, rising as Dorcas skipped 
into the room to find out what were the prospects for 
going home. u I hope father will accept your invitation ! 
I’m going right away, D.” 

“ I wanted to start in time to go around the other 
way and get a boat the Lumley boy is scooping out for 
me,” said Dorcas, swinging around Jean by a hold on 
her hand. 

“ I will put my invitation in such a way that he can’t 
refuse,” said Mrs. Claudia, replying to Jean’s remark. 
“ I made him his first knickerbockers and I used to call 
him Winkles—no one could disregard such a claim as 
that! He early formed the habit of obedience to me, 
besides.” 

“Why did you call father Winkles, Step-grand?” 
cried Dorcas eagerly. 

“ Short for Wee Willie Winkle, and I called him that 
because his name was Bentley,” explained Mrs. Wolcott 
with a twinkle. 

“I must hurry home, Step-grand,” said Jean smiling. 
“ Thank you a thousand times.” 

“ Once would be too many,” remarked Mrs. Claudia. 
“ Your home was my husband’s home, and I know he 


202 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


would want it kept in the family. I was your grand¬ 
father’s second wife, but he was not my second husband. 
I thought a great deal of Thomas Wolcott, your grand¬ 
father. I consider it just as much my business to look 
after his son and his grandchildren, and his old family 
place, as if I had been his first wife, and Bentley’s own 
mother. I shall drive over this afternoon and carry off 
your father, neck and crop. You are a good girl, Jean, 
and a sensible one—to my great relief.” 

“ I call that a doubtful compliment! ” laughed Jean. 
“ I am counting the hours till mother gets back to let 
me be my silly self, without any responsibility. But 
that doesn’t mean my old selfish self, that let her do 
it all, Step-grand ; I hope it doesn’t.” 

“ See that it doesn’t! Good-bye,” said Mrs. Claudia 
severely, but her eyes smiled at Jean. 

“ You must have some idea of what Step-grand and 
I were talking about, Dorcas,” said Jean, as they drove 
slowly away at Old King Cole’s approved pace. “ But 
I want you to give me your word of honor that not a 
hint will leak out from you. Don’t you let Rod guess 
that Step-grand and I had planned for her to ask father 
there.” 

“ I’m no tattle-tale, Jean Wolcott,” said Dorcas con¬ 
temptuously. “ I know all about it, because I’m not 
such a slow thing as Mellie Beal. She wouldn’t know 


JEAN’S PLOT 


203 


what was going on, not if you tried the least bit to 
fool her—you couldn’t fool me ! I know Rod wants 
father to sell the house to Tony Dillon-” 

“Mr. Dillon,” murmured Jean, remembering her 
elder sisterly obligations. 

“ And that you don’t want him to,” Dorcas went on, 
disregarding her. “ I liked him at first, but I caught 
him smiling at Rod behind my back when I said some¬ 
thing, and I don’t like him any more after that. And 
Rod thinks he’s just it; I think big boys are dread¬ 
fully conceited! And anyhow I don’t want that house 
sold; just’s if any of us would! So you needn’t be 
afraid I’ll let Rod know that you got Step-grand to 
ask father there. It’s awfully smart of you, Jean; 
father will be all kind of up-set-interested, making a 
visit to Step-grand, and she’ll keep him thinking of 
things, so he won’t do anything, and maybe mother’ll 
come before he gets through visiting. I think you’re 
awfully smart to think of that, Jean Wolcott. Any¬ 
how I wouldn’t tell anything you said I was to keep, 
even if I wasn’t on your side, like this. Because you 
and I are the girls of our family and we’ve got to stick 
up for each other against the boys—’cept Steve. And 
you’ve stuck up for all of us, so I wouldn’t go back on 
you any way, but we’re sisters so I wouldn’t, if it wasn’t 
like that.” 



204 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Jean laughed till King Cole turned in the shafts to 
see if it was mirth or crying. “ I know exactly what 
you mean, D., and I’m very much obliged, but I think 
I never in all my life heard a more mixed-up speech 
than that! And if we except Steve, there isn’t what 
could be called a crowd of boys in our family for us to 
stand against. But you’re a good little D. to be loyal 
to me, and I appreciate it,” she said. 

“You’re all right, Jean, and you’re getting just like 
Jeanne d’ Arc, fighting our battles! ” cried Dorcas, 
to whom Jean’s valor appealed more strongly than her 
poetical, or even her domestic side. 


CHAPTER XIII 


JEAN, THE CONSPIRATOR 


T HAT afternoon Mrs. Claudia Wolcott, not being 
a person that delayed, descended upon the old 
Wolcott house prepared to accomplish an abduction. 
She drove herself, sitting erect in an old-fashioned 
carryall, capacious, competent, although it listed to one 
side slightly, after the fashion of the fishing schooners 
and sloops which glided across the sky at the edge of 
the horizon beyond Tidewater, and then dipped down 
and out into the watery world, beyond the curve of 
meeting clouds and sea. 

“ Oh me, I feel like a criminal! ” sighed Jean into 
Steve’s ear as they watched their relative-in-law arrive. 

“ I don’t,” returned Steve stoutly. “ It’s only a visit 
and father will like it; it doesn’t do anything, much, 
only gives us more time. He’ll be willing to go.” 

“ Only he won’t know why he is asked. It’s like 
something criminal, I can’t think what—I know! 
Getting goods under false pretenses! ” cried Jean. 

“Is father the goods?” inquired Steve. “That’s 
disrespectful, besides being slang.” 

205 


206 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Jean had no chance to reply, for Mrs. Claudia was 
at the gate and Steve had to run out with the man¬ 
nerly, but unacceptable offer to tie her horse for her. 

“ Is Bentley—is your father here, children ? ” asked 
Mrs. Claudia entering; she did not indulge in the 
slightest significant glance at Jean; she carried out her 
role even though no one but her fellow conspirators 
were present. 

“ He is up-stairs in the tower room, Step-grand,” said 
Jean. “ Shall Steve call him ? ” 

“ Please do, Stephen,” returned Mrs. Claudia, and 
seated herself in a straight chair—she did not like rock¬ 
ers—remarking on the warmth of the mid-afternoon. 

Steve returned with his father. Mr. Wolcott was 
smiling, for he was sincerely fond of his stepmother 
and was glad to see her, yet he looked bewildered, as 
he often did when summoned from his profoundest 
depths of dreams to the actual world, a world less real 
to him than that other world. 

“Well, Winkles!” said Mrs. Claudia, by way of 
greeting, and Mr. Wolcott woke up with a start of 
pleased surprise. He had not heard that absurb child¬ 
ish nickname in years, and it brought before him, in¬ 
stantly, this same room, almost unchanged, with his 
father in the armchair yonder, and a little, wide-eyed, 
fair-haired boy—himself—in that window-seat beyond 


JEAN, THE CONSPIRATOR 


207 


the chair. The boy’s nose was always buried in a book ; 
he was entirely happy, oblivious to his stepmother’s 
frequent reminder: “ Sit up straighter, Winkles; you’ll 
get completely round and the gnomes will trundle you 
away to use for a hoop on one of the kegs they keep in 
the middle of the mountains.” 

“ Winkles, mother ? ” he said, smiling, yet moved by 
the associations of the name. “ It is long since you 
called me that.” 

“ You looked so Winklesfied when you came in,” ex¬ 
plained Mrs. Claudia. “ I never saw any man—not any 
—that kept his childhood set right in the midst of his 
manhood as you do, Bentley-Winkles. I suppose that 
is why I used the name, that, and the fact that I have 
come to ask you to pay me a visit; I suppose the 
thought of having you with me alone again recalled 
your childhood.” Which really was an artful way to 
put Mrs. Claudia’s request. 

“ A visit ? Oh, I’m afraid that’s impossible, mother,” 
said Mr. Wolcott. “You see I am particularly inter¬ 
ested in my work just now, particularly. For the mo¬ 
ment, I have laid aside the air-ship rudder and am 
working on an idea that came—that revealed itself to 
me incidentally to the rudder experimenting. I think 
it is not impossible that I have found a way to anchor 
an air-ship at whatever altitude would be desired. It’s a 


208 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


great thing, doesn’t seem possible, but yet I am in¬ 
clined to believe in it. I should be afraid to leave it at 
its present stage. Of course I should enjoy visiting 
you otherwise; it is kind of you to think of it.” 

“ Nonsense, Winkles! You know I am a selfish old 
body ; I want you for my own benefit,” retorted Mrs. 
Claudia. “ And as to your sky anchor, who in all this 
world would be likely to want to anchor at an altitude ? 
Flying would appeal to any one, I should suppose, but 
to be anchored aloft, like a last year’s crow’s nest in 

the top of a bare pine- Is your idea really 

valuable, Bentley ? However,” she added hastily, 
forestalling his reply, which would not interest her, 
“ you are to bring your tools and materials with you, 
and be installed in my cupola; you are not to cease 
working. But you are not to say no to me. I’ll 
guarantee you uninterrupted days. A man came the 
other night peering in at the window; I’d like you in 
the house till I’m sure he has, as we may say, blown 
over—and that ought to combine well with air-ship 
fixing ! ” Mrs. Claudia laughed. 

“You make it impossible for me to refuse to go to 
you, mother,” said Mr. Wolcott, his brow wrinkling 
with perplexity. “ I suppose I could easily transport 
the materials required for working out this last idea of 
mine. It is very valuable, very. I cannot, of course, 


JEAN, THE CONSPIRATOR 


209 


leave you unprotected, if objectionable persons are 
prowling around your house at night. I did not know 
there were any, what one might call prowlers, in Tide¬ 
water. You ought to let your man sleep in the house. 
I forget; he has a home and a family, though. What 
you should have done was to have stayed with me, in 
this house, when I married. Mary and I would have 
been truly glad to have had you.” 

“ No place for stepmothers, nor mothers-in-law, nor 
any hyphenated ladies—not even for own mothers, as a 
rule, in the homes of married people,” declared Mrs. 
Claudia. “ Now, Bentley, get your belongings together 
and come. You can see how impatient Nebuchadnezzar 
is growing.” 

Nebuchadnezzar, so called because he ate grass, 
stood with his nose to the hitching-post, to which he 
was unnecessarily tied, resting on one side, drooping 
at both ends, the incarnation of indolent dullness. 

Mr. Wolcott laughed. “Neb would allow me to 
finish anchor and rudder before I went with you, but I 
must not keep you waiting, though I might be justified 
in giving Neb more time,” he said. “ Jean, will you 
get together what I shall need in the way of clothes ? 
You know more about them than I do, and I shall have 
enough to do to put more important things into—what ? 
The little trunk ? ” 


210 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“I’ll get the' little trunk out for you, father,” 
volunteered Steve, and hurried off to bring forth a 
low, soft, narrow and rounding trunk that had served 
Mr. Wolcott on his rare absences from home all his 
life. 

At last the preparations for the visit were made and 
Mr. Wolcott, with the trunk in the rear of the carryall, 
the back seat perched jauntily upon it, was beside his 
stepmother in the front seat, and she was gathering up 
the reins for departure. Then, for the first time, Mr. 
Wolcott bethought himself of his divided duty as a 
protector. Leaning out of the carriage, he asked solic¬ 
itously : 

“ Shall you be able to get on here alone, Jean ? Will 
Rodney and Steve be sufficient guardians for you ? ” 

“ Oh, father, yes indeed ! ” cried Jean. “ If I ever 
could wake them up they’d be splendid guardians! I 
can ask Helen to stay with me, then together we could 
get the boys up, if there were a burglar or a fire! 
We’ll be as right as right can be! ‘ Have a good time, 

Bentley, and don’t go out without your rubbers if it 
rains.’ Doesn’t that make you imagine mother-darling 
is here to start you on your journey ? ” 

“ The dear woman ! ” murmured Mr. Wolcott as Mrs. 
Claudia made Nebuchadnezzar move on. 

“ And the dear girl, Bentley ! ” his stepmother sup- 


JEAN, THE CONSPIRATOR 211 

plemented him. “ Jean is a daughter to be thankful 
for.” 

Jean went to her room and dropped into the cushions 
of her window that looked upon the sea. She rarely 
enjoyed this window of late. What a changed Jean 
she was ! For the unbelievable part of it was that she 
did not regret the life that had seemed so necessary to 
her, the dream days of vague ambitions and poetry, 
lived and made ! 

Out on the waves dancing toward shore, she saw 
Rod coming in with Anthony Dillon in the skiff. 
They had been perch fishing off the rocks ; Jean rightly 
guessed that Rod was bringing Mr. Dillon to supper, 
to eat their fish together, and to angle for Mr. Wolcott 
that evening. 

“ You may be able to catch perch, sir, but you won’t 
land any bigger fish to-night, at least,” said Jean aloud 
to the unconscious youth in the stern of Rod’s skiff. 

Jean noted that Rod was sufficiently enamored of his 
friend to feel it a privilege to do all the work, while 
Anthony Dillon lolled at ease in the stern, rudder 
ropes in hand, doing no more than enacting the role of 
figurehead, though at the wrong end of the craft. 

Rod brought Mr. Dillon into the house by the rear 
door. He delighted Rod and exasperated Jean, while 
Winnie glowered, scenting that the guest was not wel- 


212 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


come to her young mistress, by making himself entirely 
at home and helping to prepare the fish that he and 
Rod had caught. Usually Tidewater boys brought 
their friends home to supper when they had fished to¬ 
gether, and Tidewater mothers and sisters made them 
welcome, overlooking the mess they made of the kitchen 
when they cleaned their fish for the sake of the pride 
and pleasure of their boys. But Anthony Dillon was 
not a Tidewater boy, and Jean resented his freedom 
with her shining knives and table. 

“ Father’ll like that fish, Tony,” said Rod, watching 
Mr. Dillon scrape a peculiarly plump perch of his own 
haul, which had been kept separate. 

“ Father is not at home, Rod,” said Jean. 

“ Where is he ? ” asked Rod sharply, and Anthony 
Dillon looked up quickly from his fish as if the news 
were not welcome. 

“ He has gone to visit our step-grandmother,” said 
Jean quietly. “ She came this afternoon to fetch him. 
He may be gone several days; indeed he went prepared 
to stay. Step-grand persuaded him to take his models, 
his tools, or whatever he is using now. She will give 
him her cupola-room to work in.” 

“Jean?” began Rodney, then checked himself, but 
that one interrogative syllable held the value of a 
lengthy question, supplemented by Rod’s expression. 


JEAN, THE CONSPIRATOR 


213 


Jean looked Rod straight in the eyes and her own 
eyes baffled the boy. 

“ Mr. Dillon wanted particularly to see him and he 
wanted to see Mr. Dillon to-night,” said Rod frowning. 

“He is at Mrs. Wolcott’s, Mrs. Claudia Wolcott's; 
you might follow him there, if you are anxious to see 
him at once,” suggested Jean, turning away with a fine 
air of indifference. 

Anthony Dillon missed the force of this suggestion, 
not knowing Mrs. Wolcott well, nor fully understanding 
Jean’s father, but Rod knew its value, knew that with 
his step-grandmother mounted as a sort of guardian 
dragon over her stepson’s guilelessness, it would be im¬ 
possible to carry it out with success. Not that Rod be¬ 
lieved that his father was in danger of harm from his 
friend; the boy worshipped Dillon and believed in 
him; his one thought was that “ Step-grand would 
spoil it all.” 

Anthony Dillon’s prolonged vacation was drawing 
to a close; he must put through his arrangement with 
Mr. Wolcott at once. It was maddening to suspect 
that- Jean, impractical Jean, had set in the way of the 
success of this arrangement an obstacle so simple, yet so 
insurmountable, for the time, as their father’s present 
visit to his stepmother. Rodney was only a boy, al¬ 
though he fondly believed that he was old enough to 


214 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


sit in the councils of the wise. He promptly and boy¬ 
ishly retaliated upon Jean for the helpless wrath which 
the plan that he suspected to be hers had kindled in 
him. 

“ I met Helen Lumley on the beach when we came 
in, Jean,” he said. “ She told me to tell you that she 
was coming to see you to-night, but her mother wants 
her for something, so she won’t get here. I guess if 
you’d seen her this morning, as Tony and I did when 
we started fishing, you’d be glad she wasn’t coming. 
Roger Cathcart had her out rowing! ” 

Dorcas tormented Jean, but she adored her big sister, 
nevertheless. She saw the color that flooded Jean’s 
face as she walked with much dignity out of the room, 
and Anthony Dillon laughed good-naturedly, saying, 
“ Oh, hold on, Rod; no fair teasing pretty Jean.” 

Dorcas knew a weak place in Rod’s armor and she 
sent an avenging shaft into it, for Jean’s sake. 

“ Say, Rod,” said the witch-child innocently, “ let me 
have some of that crocheted trimming you made last 
year when you were sick, will you ? I want it for my 
doll.” 

Dorcas had the satisfaction of seeing Rod’s purple 
blush of mortification as Anthony Dillon looked at him 
with a teasing laugh. She went out of the room after 
Jean, executing a sort of impromptu fandango of rap- 


JEAN, THE CONSPIRATOR 


215 


ture, knowing that her shaft had hit the vulnerable 
point of a big boy’s shame at being caught at anything 
“ sissy.” 

“ I paid Rod off! ” she announced, seizing Jean’s arm 
and shaking it joyously. 

“ You mustn’t say things to bother people, D., and 
I’m not fond of paying back, honey. Rod felt cross, 
so he tried to be mean to me, but don’t you let your 
little tongue wound people,” advised Jean, patting the 
child’s flushed cheek to thank her for her partisanship, 
while she reprimanded her. 

“ I like paying back,” said Dorcas candidly. “ Not 
scrapping, you know; that makes you feel so horrid 
when you stop, but just paying back, good and sharp, 
and then going off, so the other one can’t say anything, 
’cause if he does, then you’ve got to go in again, or else 
let him have the last word, and that way you get sick 
of it, and real mad before you stop. I’m always aw¬ 
fully pleased when I’ve got square and scooted. I shall 
never be really nice, like you, Jean. I sort of enjoy 
myself when I’m bad, and there’s no good my pretend¬ 
ing I’m happiest when I’m nice and gentle, because I’m 
not, and that’s the real truth.” 

Jean laughed and hugged Dorcas up to her. “ And 
there’s no use in my lecturing you, because you don’t 
care, for one thing, and for another you are' such an 


216 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


honest, human little sinner, D., that it’s hard to do it! 
When you grow older maybe you’ll see that it’s more 
satisfaction to get the best of yourself, and crush back 
the smart thing that you could have said—and hurt 
with—than to get the best of some one else,” said Jean. 

Dorcas stopped short and looked up into Jean’s face 
with wide-eyed amazement. “I kind of see it this 
minute! ” she said slowly. “ Isn’t that the queerest! 
Nobody ever said it that way before! I believe it 
would be fun to get the best of one of yourselves with 
the other one! I can feel two people in me, pulling, 
can you, Jean ? I think one is up-stairs in me and the 
other down-stairs. Isn’t that queer ? Maybe it would 
be just as much fun to let the up-stairs me get the best 
of the down-stairs me, as it would to get the best of 
some one outside of me. I’ll try it, and find out! ” 

“ Dorcas, you are talking—I think it is metaphysics, 
or psychology, or something with some big name that 
you never heard, and I don’t feel sure about! ” laughed 
Jean. “ Of course I feel the two—at least!—different 
girls there are in me, having quite desperate times to¬ 
gether, sometimes. But lately one has got the upper 
hand and the other—or the rest—are taking naps most 
of the time, outside their house, apparently.” 

“ You’re very nice, Jean, and pleasant to talk to, now 
that you aren’t always corked up in an ink bottle,” said 


JEAN, THE CONSPIRATOR 


217 


candid Dorcas, with another squeeze of Jean’s arm. “ I 
believe we shall enjoy being sisters to each other, when 
I’m a little bigger.” 

“ That’s a compliment! ” cried Jean, with another 
laugh. “ I see Miss Balfour, D.; she is coming here. 
Shall we go out to meet her ? ” 

“ There’s one thing about a house facing the ocean ; 
you almost always keep your company outside, so the 
ocean will entertain ’em,” observed Dorcas, following 
Jean to the porch. 

“ Jean, dear, it is ever so long since I have seen 
you!” exclaimed Miss Balfour taking both of Jean’s 
hands. “ How well you look, child! How wide awake, 
alert; as if you were interested in all sorts of nice 
things! You are well, then ? ” 

“ Yes, thank you, Miss Balfour, and I am interested 
in all sorts of things; they are not all nice ones, but 
they do wake me up,” replied Jean. “I have been 
wishing I could tell you about the main thing, but it 
really would not help any, and I ought to wait now to 
see what next.” 

“You are as mysterious as an oracle, my dear!” 
laughed Miss Balfour. “ When you are ready to tell 
me about anything that interests you, still more any¬ 
thing that might bother you, I shall be eager to hear, 
and to help, if I can. In the meantime, I have some- 


218 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


thing to say that may interest you. No: we don’t care 
to go into the house, do we ? Shall we stay here and 
listen to the ocean and watch that light while we talk ? 
I never could tire of seeing that signal flash up and die 
away! Now, then, little Tidewater poet, these steps 
are better than chairs. Here is my budget of news, all 
open for you to admire! I am invited to a literary 
luncheon in Boston this week, three days hence. I 
wrote to the committee arranging the affair and I have 
an invitation for you. I could not tell you before be¬ 
cause I was not sure I could get it, but you certainly 
have a pretty little gown that will be suitable; you 
are so young that simple white would be the best of 
all. There are to be no end of literary lights shining 

at this luncheon. The guest of honor is-,” Miss 

Balfour named a successful London author, “ and our 
Great and Near-great are coming to town to celebrate 
him in the delicacies of an elaborate menu. Will you 
go, Jean ? You can go perfectly well, with your model 
Winnie to look after your charges for a day or two— 
we should have to stay over night.” 

“ Oh, Miss Balfour, if you knew how I thanked you, 
thanked and thanked you! And how I’d love to go! ” 
cried Jean. “ I’d give anything to see the writers I’m 
fond of, and I’d probably be introduced to some one— 
oh, I’d love it! But I can’t think of going away from 



JEAN, THE CONSPIRATOR 219 

home now. I’ve got to say no. Don’t think I’m not 
grateful; you can’t possibly guess how I thank you, 
how I’d enjoy it.” 

“I don’t want your gratitude, dear little girl; I 
want you! ” cried Hester Balfour. “ Please come with 
me to see how genius eats salads, ices and disports 
itself generally ! Dorcas will keep house, won’t you, 
Dorcas ? ” 

“ I’ll keep myself, and I guess Jean thinks I’m the 
hardest part of the house to keep,” said queer little 
black-eyed Dorcas. “You’d better go, Jean. Maybe 
you’ll find out how to write a great novel; anyhow 
you’ll have a good time, and that’s enough.” 

“ Sensible little witch-child ! ” approved Miss Balfour. 
“ Say yes, Jean! ” 

“ Miss Balfour, I couldn’t go away now, unless I had 
to,” said Jean. “ I couldn’t go to Boston, not unless 
I had to.” She ended lamely in the words she had 
already used, her mind being filled with a renewed 
sense of the danger to her old home, which she must 
combat at short range. 

Miss Balfour looked so disappointed that Jean mar¬ 
veled, and when, after a little further pleasant talk 
and another attempt to persuade Jean to accept her 
golden invitation, Miss Balfour went away, she left 
Jean cast down by her sense of loss. 


CHAPTER XIV 
jean’s call to aems 


HE next morning, early, Jean saw Miss Balfour 



JL coming up the cliff and across the dune, and with 
her were Helen and Roger. 

“ She can’t have brought them to coax me to go to 
Boston! As though I wouldn’t go if I could! ” 
thought Jean. There was a tiny sense of discomfort 
somewhere about her as she watched her friends draw 
nearer. She did not pursue it to its source; if she had 
she would have found that Rod’s nonsense of yesterday 
his hint that Roger and Helen were a bit sentimental 
toward each other, had lurked in her memory and 
that she did not enjoy the suggestion. It was silly; 
Jean knew that. Roger was never sentimental, for 
one thing, and for another it had always been Jean, 
not Helen, whom he openly declared his allegiance to. 
For another thing, as Jean had impatiently told her¬ 
self as she had braided her hair the night before, “ she 
did not care, anyway.” 

“ Doesn’t the wind blow! ” called Miss Balfour, 
when they had come near enough to be heard. 


220 


JEAN’S CALL TO ARMS 


221 


“ Getting ready for the August storm,” returned 
Jean, her cloud rifting and drifting away under the 
magic of Miss Balfour’s great charm and the beaming 
smile that Roger bestowed upon her, and Helen’s clear¬ 
eyed honesty as she kissed her. 

“ Helen’s a duck ; I wouldn’t blame Roger for liking 
her best,” thought Jean cordially, affording to think it 
because she knew in a moment that Roger did not like 
Helen better than—any other girl! 

“Isn’t it funny how people talk of ‘the August 
storm,’ or 4 the May storm ’ ? I think we get hard 
blows and long storms in any month, and the equinoc¬ 
tial ! People call any rain that comes between the 
fifteenth of September and the middle of October the 
equinoctial! How could a storm come from the sun’s 
crossing a line drawn by astronomers ? ” 

“ Why, Jean, how you chatter ! ” exclaimed Helen 
involuntarily. “ And how red your cheeks are! 
Doesn’t she look like another girl, Roger ? I was so 
worried when you began to do all that you are doing, 
for fear you’d break down, but it seems to have made 
you well! Isn’t it strange that you were saying, that 
day when we heard your mother and her cousin talk¬ 
ing—it seems years ago !—you were saying that some 
day you’d be cured by a great love ? And in an hour 
the trumpet call came and you-” 


222 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“Enlisted,” Roger interrupted. “We met Miss Bal¬ 
four, Jean,” he went on, as if he did not care to discuss 
Jean’s achievements. “ She told us about the big time 
in Boston she wanted you to take in. Helen and I 
came along with her to say we’d look after your house¬ 
hold. Helen would stay with Dorcas and I’d stay with 
the boys. I suppose when we were in the house it 
would be hard to tell our offices apart, for we’d sit in 
the same rooms, but that would be the way we’d divide 
ourselves. Go ahead, Jean, take in that luncheon; I 
know it would be naphtha—I mean nectar—to you to 
drink muddy water at the table with a whole bunch of 
your pet writers ! ” 

“ Can’t be done, nice boy and girl,” said Jean, shak¬ 
ing her head regretfully. “ Father is away now ; he’s 
visiting Mrs. Claudia Wolcott.” 

“ How queer you look, Jean! What is back of 
that ? ” demanded Helen. Miss Balfour sat down on 
the steps, pulling off her chamois gloves, looking inter¬ 
ested as she scented a story. 

“ I’m back of it, chiefly,” said Jean, blushing as she 
glanced at Miss Balfour. “ I’ve been wishing I could 
tell Miss Balfour about it and I meant to get hold of 
Roger to-day to see what he thought of it all. Will 
you listen, Miss Balfour ? It isn’t a long story.” 

“ I’d rather listen if it were, but I’ll be grateful for 


JEAN’S CALL TO ARMS 


223 


being allowed to hear it, regardless of length,” said 
Miss Balfour. “ I mean of shortness.” 

“ I have been wondering if you’d think I was wrong 
—and doing wrong. You know so much about busi¬ 
ness and—and everything,” said Jean childishly. Then 
she began the story of Anthony Dillon’s summer in 
Tidewater, of Rod’s infatuation and the offer for the 
beloved old Wolcott place. 

“ It seems all wrong to me,” Jean ended, “ so I got 
my step-grandmother to persuade father to go to her. 
Step-grand says it is a Claudian abduction.” 

“ It seems all wrong to me, also,” said Miss Balfour, 
profoundly interested. “But, Jean, what good can it 
do to transfer your father from one Tidewater house to 
another ? Can’t your father sell the house as easily 
when he is visiting as when he is at home ? ” 

“ Dear me, no indeed! ” cried Jean, with such fervor 
that Helen and Roger, knowing Mrs. Claudia Wolcott, 
laughed heartily. “ You don’t know Step-grand, Miss 
Balfour, and you don’t know father. She will keep 
him interested and she will not let Mr. Dillon have a 
wink of chance. Father is easily diverted—but of 
course I am uneasy : I know it is dangerous. Father 
has been quite talked over by Rodney. You think the 
house is worth keeping, don’t you ? ” 

“I think it would be tragic to part with such a 


224 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


venerable old home. There are few American houses 
handed down from generation to generation. But if it 
had to be sold, I think a site like this on the cliff, with 
all that before it and fourteen acres of land, is worth 
decidedly more than Mr. Dillon offers,” said Miss 
Balfour, with a gesture including the outstretched ex¬ 
panse of sea in her estimate of the Wolcott place. 

“ And the shares in the future company ? ” suggested 
Jean. 

“ A bid in the hand is worth any number of rooms 
in an air castle,” replied Miss Balfour briefly. 

“ I admire your skill in getting your father out of 
reach for a day or so, Jean,” said Roger. “ But to be 
truthful, I don’t see what good it will do in the end.” 

“ Only give us time. I hoped something might turn 
up to change father’s mind back to his first opinion. If 
nothing happens I suppose father will want to go on 
with the sale, and how I shall be able to see the look in 
mother’s eyes when she comes back I don’t know—and 
she should have been so happy to get home ! ” sighed 
Jean. 

“ Steve is standing around the corner of the house, 
Jean,” said Helen. “ He is making signs to me : I 
think he must mean that I am to tell you to go to him, 
though he might mean anything else.” 

“ Why doesn’t he come here ? ” asked Jean. She 


JEAN’S CALL TO AEMS 


225 


arose and went to the foot of the steps. “ Come here, 
Steve,” she called, beckoning. “ Oh, he shakes his 
head as hard as he can ! I suppose I must go see what’s 
wrong, if you’ll excuse me a moment, please,” she added 
running down the narrow walk that circled the house, 
and joining Steve. 

Helen, from where she sat, could see Steve hold out 
something white to Jean which she bent close to 
examine. Then they both started to return to the group 
on the steps, Steve coming with visible reluctance, Jean 
pressing forward eagerly. 

“ Steve has found something,” said Jean, coming up 
the steps to resume her seat. “ It is a bundle of letters 
belonging to Mr. Dillon. I can’t understand why 
Steve thinks them important and I wouldn’t let him 
tell me there ; I wanted you all to hear. I told him I 
had just been letting you all into the secret of our con¬ 
spiracy to spirit father out of reach.” 

“ Where’d you find them, kid ? ” asked Roger, turn¬ 
ing over the plump bundle that Steve put into his hand, 
a package of letters in business envelopes, all alike, held 
together by an elastic band. 

“ Out by the old well curb : Dillon and Rod washed 
their fish there last night,” said Steve. “ I expect him 
every moment to ask if we’ve found them.” 

“Dillon?” asked Roger. “Well, what about it if 


226 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


he does come and ask for them ? I’m like Jean: I 
can’t see anything in finding a bundle.of letters; what’s 
supposed to come of it ? ” 

“ Where are your eyes, Roge ? ” asked Steve. 
“Just spread those letters out and see if you notice 
anything queer about them. I had them out of the 
band and laid ’em in a row : try it and see how they 
look to you.” 

“What is it?” asked Jean. She and Helen and 
Miss Balfour leaned toward Roger as he slipped the 
rubber band over his finger and laid the letters out on 
his knees. 

“They are all from one firm in Boston, Stewart, 
Reed & Company. And they are all redirected from 
Kennebunkport, Maine. That is a little queer ! ” 

“ Why, it’s more than a little queer, Jean! ” cried 
Steve, warming into rare excitement, speaking with 
none of his usual deliberation. “ Look at the post¬ 
marks of those letters. How long has Dillon been 
hanging around here ? Shouldn’t you think that firm, 
if they had to write him as often as this, would have 
been told his right address before this time ? ” 

“ Dillon came here in May—this is August—one in 
May, seven in June, nine in July, four, so far, this 

month- Look here, Steve, you aren’t so dead slow 

after all! ” cried Roger. “ It was rather clever of you 


JEAN’S CALL TO ARMS 


227 


to have seen this so quickly. Here’s a fairly rapid 
correspondence, and this Mr. Dillon does not cor¬ 
rect the impression which these people have that he’s 
down in Maine all this time ! Something funny about 
it.” 

“ I don’t believe people do queer things without queer 
reasons,” cried Jean, while at the same instant Helen 
said: 

“ It is strange, but it may not mean anything except 
that Mr. Dillon is careless.” 

“ Now you’re talking, Sis ! ” cried Steve, replying to 
Jean’s remark. “ A fellow wouldn’t be as careless as 
that, not with an address for a lot of business letters, 
Helen. Besides, Jean and I don’t trust Dillon and I 
believe this letter twistiness gives away some trick, only 
we haven’t the clue to what it is.” 

“ That’s just it; we haven’t the clue, Steve ! ” said 
Jean, turning over one of the letters wistfully. “ So it 
doesn’t give away a thing, except that Anthony Dillon 
isn’t—or very likely isn’t—straight. If only we knew 
what was in the letters! ” 

“ But we can’t look at them, Jean, no matter how 
bad we want to, or why,” said Steve, as quickly as if he 
feared for the stability of his sister’s principles. 

“ Don’t you worry, Steve; I won’t turn rogue, though 
it does take a rogue to catch one, and though we’re 


228 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


wild to find out about Rod’s friend,” Jean laughed. 
“ Miss Balfour, what do you think of it—anything ? 
You haven’t said one word.” 

“I certainly think it looks suspicious, but nobody 
could know what to suspect,” returned Miss Balfour. 
“ I know—I used to know quite well the junior member 
of that firm of Stewart, Reed & Company—it was the 
‘and Company’ whom I knew. I could solve the 
mystery, if there be one—and if I could! If I still 
knew the ‘ and Company,’ I mean.” 

“ You couldn’t renew the acquaintance, could you ? ” 
hinted Roger, looking at Miss Balfour with half sympa¬ 
thetic, half laughing eyes betraying that he had caught 
the meaning underlying Miss Balfour’s words, to which 
Jean was entirely oblivious. 

Miss Balfour shook her head, returning Roger’s look 
with a kind of humorous melancholy. 

“ Barriers in the air are quite insurmountable,” she 
said. “ I’m sorry.” 

“ It surely is a pity not to get more out of this blind 
clue,” said Jean, who had pursued her own thoughts 
in the meantime. “ I know ! ” she cried springing to 
her feet under the impetus of a swift inspiration, and 
sending several of the letters scurrying to the ground. 
“ Why did none of us think of it before ? I’ve been 
wishing I could find out some one who knew Mr. Dillon 


JEAN’S CALL TO ARMS 


229 


and here they are! ” She tapped the firm name in the 
corner of the envelope triumphantly. 

“ I will go to Boston this afternoon. I will stay over 
night at that quiet little hotel where mother always 
stays, and to-morrow morning I will present myself re¬ 
spectfully at the office of Stewart, Reed & Company. 
I will drop a meek little curtsey in the doorway, and 
I will say: Please, Mr. Stewart, Reed & Company, 
and do you know Mr. Anthony Dillon, and would 
you mind telling me whether he is a rascal, as Steve 
and I think he is ? Or words to that effect, you 
know.” 

“ Jean, you wouldn’t do that! ” cried Helen. 

“Not precisely,” laughed Jean. “That would be 
the spirit, not the letter of my speech.” 

“ Oh, I didn’t mean that nonsense! I mean you 
wouldn’t really go to Boston and go to that office and 
ask about Mr. Dillon ? How could you ? ” 

“Just go,” said Jean calmly. “ I certainly mean it. 
I wouldn’t have to explain much if I found they thought 
it all right for him to be here when they thought he 
was in Maine. Then I’d simply say he had talked of 
buying our house and I had come to ask—no, not that! 
Well, some little explanation would do, and then I’d 
go away. But if I found something queer in the air I 
could feel my way along farther. Don’t be afraid, 


230 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Helen; I won’t do anything rash, nor unladylike ! 
Wouldn’t you go, Miss Balfour, Roger ? ” 

“ Yes, I would,” said Roger. “ Maybe I ought to go 
down with you, see you through.” 

“ Goodness, how could you ? ” cried Jean. 

“ Unfortunately, Roger Cathcart, you nice boy, that 
would demand still another as chaperon to you two 
youngsters,” said Miss Balfour. “ I would go, Jean; I 
think your plan is admirable, and that you will instinc¬ 
tively say the right thing when you get there. I shall 
go down with you. Not on your errand to that office, 
though if my hands weren’t tied I could be useful to 
you there. But I’ll go with you to Boston, and you 
shall stay with me, and I hope you’ll like that better 
than being alone in a hotel, like a tiny kiimmel seed in 
a big cake ! It is only anticipating my going to town 
for the luncheon. By the way, Jean, you said you 
could not leave home to go to that luncheon, yet off 
you fly as lightly as milkweed down at the first—other 
—provocation! ” 

“ Oh, I know, Miss Balfour! But can’t you see ? I 
couldn’t go away for pleasure, but I must go, because I 
ought. You know I’d love the luncheon best of any¬ 
thing I could do ! ” cried Jean, feeling that Miss Balfour 
was only teasing, yet distressed by the possibility of her 
m isunderstanding. 


JEAN’S CALL TO ARMS 


231 


“ I know, Jean child! I understand,” Miss Balfour, 
seeing this, reassured her. “ After all, Puritan inher¬ 
itance comes out—duty first, and pleasure, maybe, not 
at all! But I admire the capacity to choose an 6 ought ’ 
instead of a 4 would.’ I suspect lots of the harmful 
social conditions we deplore come from people trying to 
please themselves instead of doing their hard duty. 
Will you let me go down with you this afternoon, 
then, Jean ? ” 

“ Doing a hard duty ? ” hinted Jean slyly. 

“ No, you saucy girl! I’m not of Puritan ancestry 
like you; I want to go! ” cried Miss Balfour. 

“ I think it would be so kind of you that I’m afraid 
to let you go. But I’d be a happy girl if you were go¬ 
ing, and (fidn’t mind it,” said Jean, with sudden shy¬ 
ness. 

Hester Balfour, the story writer, had long been 
her admiration: Hester Balfour, the lovable, charm¬ 
ing woman, just enough older than herself to tower 
above the girl in this capacity, as she did in her public 
one, was secretly enshrined as an idol in Jean’s hero- 
worshipping heart. 

“ That’s settled, then,” said Miss Balfour. 

“ It’s worth trying, Jean, this scheme of yours,” said 
Roger, rising as Miss Balfour arose. 

“ I should say it was,” said Steve, speaking for the 


232 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


first time; he had stood, beaming, crimson under his 
tan, from the strength of his silent approval of his 
sister’s energy. “ You can just ask these people if they 
know Dillon, and whether he is responsible, or any¬ 
thing like that. Maybe they’ll tell you something, and 
maybe they won’t, but I’ll bet you’ll get at something! 
I’ll take you to the station and meet the last train to¬ 
morrow—I suppose you’ll come up on that ? ” 

“ Unless I’m detained; then I’ll telegraph you, Steve. 
I must fly around to get ready for the 2:57. "We must 
take that, Miss Balfour, you know. Helen, will you 
help me get ready ? Can you stay here to-night with 
Dorcas? Will you keep house here for twenty-four 
hours ? Winnie makes it easy enough.” 

“ Of course I will; I meant to,” said Helen. 

“ Helen, you always make me feel as though Gibral¬ 
tar had obligingly slipped loose, and had sailed over the 
ocean for me to lean on! ” cried Jean. 

“What shall I do, Jean ?” asked Roger mournfully. 
“ I’d like to be a sort of Gibraltar pebble myself, but I 
don’t see any opening for a nice young man in this 
firm.” 

“ There’s no opening for any other sort of a young 
man—look how hard Mr. Dillon has tried! ” laughed 
Jean, regarding Roger as she spoke. “You do look 
clean and honest, sir! Then you may spend the even- 


JEAN’S CALL TO ARMS 


233 


ing with my brothers, Rod and Steve, and play with 
them, just as you said you would, if I were going to 
the luncheon.” 

“ Hard matter to play with Rod lately,” said Roger. 
“ Steve, will you take me in ? ” 

“ Sure thing,” said Steve. “ You’re all right, 
Roger.” 

“ So are you, Stephen Wolcott,” said Jean warmly. 
“ If anything should come of my trip, it would be you 
who found the letters and first noticed their queer 
address.” 

“’Twould be anyhow,” remarked Steve, walking 
away, pleased with Jean’s praise, but objecting to it 
before Miss Balfour. 

“ Oh, Steve, you take charge of these letters and give 
them back to Mr. Dillon yourself, will you ? ” Jean 
called after him. 

“We’ll meet at the train, Jean,” said Miss Balfour, 
moving toward the gate. 

“ There’s the messenger from the station; he is prob¬ 
ably bringing a telegram,” said Helen, as the bent form 
of the venerable telegraph messenger, whom Tidewater 
employed through pity, came laboriously along the 
cliff. 

“ Oh, Helen ! ” cried Jean. A telegram stopped her 
heart beats now that her mother was away. 


234 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“Steady, Jeannie; I’m expecting an earldom tele¬ 
graphed me from England,” said Roger. 

But the aged messenger, disregarding the rest, went 
straight to Miss Balfour. “You wasn’t at the Cliff 
House; I went there first,” he said, as if she needed her 
whereabouts made clear to herself. “ It’s a quarter for 
one delivery; you might as well say I delivered this 
one twict,” he added. 

“ Thank you,” said Hester Balfour, giving the poor 
old fellow a bright half dollar. She tore open the dis¬ 
patch and read it, crumpled it in her hand, and turned 
to Jean, flushed, annoyed, yet happy. “ Oh, Jean dear, 
I can’t go with you ! ” she cried. “ I shall even have 
to give up the luncheon—unless you will stay in town 
and take my place, pretending to be Hester Balfour,” 
she added laughing. “ I have a novel, my first novel, 
coming out this fall, and the publishers and I have been 
discussing a change in it. They have telegraphed me 
to make it. I must work day and night for the rest of 
this week. I am so sorry, dear, to let you go alone.” 

“ I am sorry, too,” said Jean, showing plainly that 
this was true. “ But I never thought of anything else, 
till you spoke of going, so it is the same in the end. I 
won’t be afraid. A novel, Miss Balfour ? Isn’t that 
wonderful ? Yet I’m so sorry you must miss the lunch^ 


JEAN’S CALL TO ARMS 


235 


“ So am I, bht you know one’s first novel absorbs 
everything else. Can’t you imagine how interested I 
am in making the change in it, little sister Author ? ” 
asked Miss Balfour. 

“ Of course I can ! ” cried Jean. “ Good-bye. Thank 
you ever so much for meaning to go with me. It 
seemed too good to happen. I shall not be afraid. 
I shall keep thinking about that novel and how you are 
working on it, all the way on the train. It is lovely to 
know you are doing it in Tidewater. I always dreamed 
that some day I’d be where really gifted people were 
writing and painting, and I’d know them. And now 
I am, and I do! ” 

“ You dear little soul,” laughed Miss Balfour, coming 
back to kiss Jean on both her burning cheeks. “ Don’t 
you ever suspect that pictures and poetry and stories are 
made where there are no people working with artists’ 
tools, nor who are labeled artists ? ” 


CHAPTEK XV 


jean’s bold plunge 


EAN and Helen got into a wild hurry of prepara- 



•J tion after they were left alone. They discovered 
that there was not much time in which to get ready, or 
that they thought there was not. Jean was unaccus¬ 
tomed to going away, and she never before had gone 
away from home without her mother, so that valuable 
time was w T asted discussing what was necessary to take. 
Though she was intending to return the following 
afternoon, still it did not seem quite prudent to go 
away with only one fresh blouse to replace the one she 
wore. When she and Helen got through packing 
Jean’s suit-case was heavy with the superfluous articles, 
taken “ in case of ”—something highly improbable— 
happening. 

Winnie came up-stairs to survey the littered room with 
solemn, round eyes. 

“ Winnie, you will take good care of everything and 
everybody, won’t you ? ” begged Jean. 

“ Down to the two cats, Miss Jean,” said Winnie. 
“ It is a great thing to go to Boston, isn’t it, miss ? It 
takes such a deal of turning out.” 


236 


JEAN’S BOLD PLUNGE 


237 


Winnie regarded the bed and chairs without a glim¬ 
mer of the satire of which Jean suspected her. 

“ I don’t think Tidewater people consider it a great 
event to go to Boston, Winnie, but I decided suddenly 
and I wasn’t ready—and I hardly know what to take,” 
said Jean. 

“ My mother lived with a baronet’s lady at home in 
England,” said Winnie. “ I’ve heard her tell that 
when that Lady Renstone got called to this country 
sudden to see her brother dying out on a farm—which 
they called a wrench—in Arizona, America, which I 
think is not within some miles of here, she took six 
clean blouses and two skirts, and six of everything you 
wear under such, and a revolver against robbers and 
other wild creatures, and set sail, bold as you please, 
for distant shores, having had but three hours to get 
ready in before she went by the Midland railway up 
to Liverpool, where she took ship—and so did my 
mother and I when we sailed.” 

“ I’m not a baronet’s lady, Winnie, and I’m inexperi¬ 
enced,” pleaded Jean. “ But then I haven’t taken six 
of anything for this trip, nor a revolver ! And it takes 
nearly as long to go to Arizona from here as it does to 
go to Liverpool. And those farms are called ranches, 
not wrenches, though I’ve no doubt your name would 
suit lots of them.” 


238 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“I make no doubt, Miss Jean; thank you,” said 
Winnie, still with unmoved gravity. “ And far be it 
for me to say you are not making no more prepara¬ 
tions than you have to. I’ll set your room tidy after 
you’re out of it, so don’t bother to pick up after your¬ 
self. Nor, Miss Jean, take heed to this household after 
you are out of it, though soon you will return and be 
welcome to it all, for I shall faithfully do all that I 
know to be right, nor should it be as if the family was 
yet in arms, Dorcas being old enough to be left without 
a strict guardian, if she puts her mind on not needing 
one.” 

“ Oh, I’m not going to worry one bit about anything 
here, Winnie. I am more inclined to worry about the 
little Wolcott girl who is going away ! ” laughed Jean. 

a I am sure no harm will overtake you, Miss Jean, 
and horrible indeed would it be to think otherwise. 
Your lunch is ready and Master Stephen says that it 
would be best to take it immediately, as Old King Cole 
will not hasten for so little a thing as a railway train— 
that was Master Steve’s message,” said Winnie. 

“That sounds like his message,” said Jean. “ We’ll 
be right down ; I’ve only to put on my hat and find the 
mate to my glove, then I’m ready.” 

The lunch was a rapid one, from the necessity of 
King Cole’s gait, and Jean’s part of it was slight. 


JEAN’S BOLD PLUNGE 


239 


Rodney, who had been lunching with one of the other 
boys, came in just as the others arose from the table ; 
he had heard from Winnie that Jean was going to Bos¬ 
ton, and he came in with a look of glum curiosity on 
his face. 

“ What on earth has started vou off to Boston in such 

«/ 

a rush, Jean?” Rod asked suspiciously. “ You’re up 
to something ; I’ve known it ever since father went off, 
and now here’s another thing! It’s no good, Jean; 
you’re-” 

“No good, too?” interrupted Jean. “Or do you 
mean I’m up to something that’s going to fail ? I’m 
up to no bad, that’s certain, and as to the rest—time 
will show what fails and what succeeds. I’m ready if 
you are, Steve; I’m afraid I’ll miss the train. Good¬ 
bye, Rod dear; it’s horrid to have you take the tone 
you do to me lately. I’m not cross with you, because 
we don’t see things alike. Let’s be friends, Rod ! ” 

“ Oh, we’re friends right enough, only you can’t 
expect me not to stand up for my real friends,” began 
Rod, when Jean, putting her arm over his shoulders, 
asked: 

“ Aren’t we real friends ? ” 

“ Oh, fiddlestrings ! Aren’t you my sister ? Good¬ 
bye, then; take care of yourself,” said Rod impatiently, 
withdrawing from Jean’s arm. 


240 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Good-bye, Dorcas baby! And mind, D. dear: No 
pranks! Do as Helen asks you to do. It’s honor 
bright, you know; you promised ! ” said Jean, hugging 
Dorcas. 

“Well, don’t I know I promised?” cried Dorcas. 
And Jean felt no more misgivings about Dorcas, for, 
madcap though she was, she never broke her word. 

Old King Cole took Jean and Steve along the dusty 
road with dignity, and they made the train by a slight 
margin, thanks to their correct gauging of his speed. 

“ Don’t let Rod guess my errand, Steve,” Jean need¬ 
lessly cautioned the boy as they pulled up beside the 
platform. 

To which Steve made no reply beyond a look that 
eloquently asked Jean’s opinion of his intellect. She 
laughed and kissed him heartily; Steve was her rock 
amid the family shoals in which she was then floun¬ 
dering. Jean went around the corner of the little red 
station—and there was Roger! 

“ I came to wish my plucky little schoolmate good 
luck,” Roger said, contriving to take both of Jean’s 
hands in spite of her suit-case. “ I’m pretty sure you’re 
going to find out something worth knowing about that 
slick, slippery chap. It’s a shame there’s nobody but 
you to do it! Yet nobody else could do it better than 
you will, I’m sure of that! I wish I could go with 


JEAN’S BOLD PLUNGE 


241 


you and see you through, but as I can’t, here’s hoping! 
Mother would have gone with you, if she had known 
in time that you were going; she told me to say so. I 
told her your errand; mother’s safe enough, you know. 
And she thinks it’s great; she’s quite excited, knows 
just how your mother would feel if she knew about it. 
She told me to say that she sent your mother’s love 
and blessing to you, that you were a great little daugh¬ 
ter! You’ll be all right, Jean. By the great horn 
spoon! Give me a poetess, after all, for sheer, clear, 
practical, courageous common sense ! ” 

Jean’s face glowed under Roger’s encouragement and 
her eyes filled at Mrs. Cathcart’s message. It steadied 
her nerves and warmed her heart, so that she no longer 
feared nor doubted. Mrs. Cathcart was the best friend 
her mother had in Tidewater and Jean felt as though 
her mother actually had sent her girl a message by her. 

Roger got Jean’s ticket and put her on the train, 
which halted long enough to allow him to do so, but 
not much longer. He stuck her ticket into the corded 
back of the seat before her, put her suit-case up in the 
rack, half crushed her hands in a farewell clasp of 
admiring encouragement, then risked his neck by jump¬ 
ing from the moving train to wave his hat at her in 
the window as she rolled slowly past him. And after 
she had passed beyond the sight of him, Jean found in 


242 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


her lap, fresh and dewy amid the dusty heat of the 
car, a bunch of forget-me-nots that Roger, unpoetic 
Roger, had dropped there. 

A long, tiresome, dusty ride it was from Tidewater 
to Boston that afternoon, with the burning rays of the 
August sun resting directly on Jean’s side of the car, 
heating it, in spite of the drawn shade, which excluded 
air as well as sunshine. They made slow progress 
through the flat country of the shore region, stopping 
at the smallest stations with the exaggerations of the 
most accommodating of accommodation trains. 

But at last back yards began to cease to be isolated, 
and to grow together into the communal solidity of 
wall-divided rows. The washing, which in tenements 
seems incapable of drying on Monday, but is week- 
long in the public eye, garnished their small inclosures. 
In the spaces between the brick houses boys were 
playing ball, regardless of the heat, in fields productive 
of cans and outworn shoes. Bill-boards in increasing 
numbers, as well as utilized wall spaces, advised the 
arriving traveler where the best articles to satisfy all 
possible desires, from pickles to pianos, could be found 
in Boston. 

With the eager nervousness of the unaccustomed 
traveler, Jean preened herself for flight almost at the 
first of these symptoms of approach. She had her 


JEAN’S BOLD PLUNGE 


243 


umbrella in her hand, and her jacket on her arm before 
the outermost rim of the felly which encompasses the 
Hub of the Universe had been reached. 

At the great terminal station Jean made her way 
out amid the line of her fellow passengers, past the 
clamoring row of cabmen, to the sidewalk. Jean’s 
memory of the car which her mother had taken to get 
to the hotel on her rare visits to Boston was clear. It 
enabled her to await its coming without inquiry as to 
which of the many electric trolleys that rattled by the 
station was the right one for her destination. She 
boarded her car confidently, and it justified her con¬ 
fidence by voluntarily halting directly before the door 
which she wished to enter. 

Jean felt decidedly youthful, like a little girl who had 
come away from home without permission, as she asked 
the clerk behind the impressive and oppressive desk to 
assign her a room. That dignitary did not appear to 
suspect a truant in the preternaturally dignified girl be¬ 
fore him: Jean’s outward dignity was commensurate 
with her inward tremors, which it was intended to dis¬ 
guise. 

“ No. 342: be good enough to register, madam,” the 
clerk said, pushing toward Jean the great book of 
identities. 

Jean signed her name and followed the tall boy in 


244 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


the gray braided uniform, who took the key from the 
clerk, and Jean’s suit-case from the floor, and led the 
way to the elevator. The boy conducted Jean around 
the first bend on the third floor, after they got out of the 
elevator, unlocked the door of Jean’s room and left her, 
looking disgusted, for unaccustomed Jean had no dime 
ready for his expectant hand. 

Tossing her hat, jacket and umbrella on the bed, 
Jean dropped into the rocking-chair by the window and 
looked out on the quiet side street, with its uniform 
row of bow-fronted brick houses and its red brick 
pavement. It looked warm on such a day as this and 
presented irregularities of surface to unwary or unac¬ 
customed feet. 

“ I shall start out as early in the morning as I can,” 
thought Jean. “ Perhaps I shall get time for a peep 
into the library. I wonder if the number of Guernsey's 
Magazine that had my verses in it is in the reading- 
room still ? How lovely to have one’s poem in the 
Boston Public Library ! Oh, suppose some day I should 
have a book on its shelves ! ” For a few moments Jean 
lost herself in the maze of this absorbing thought. 
Then she impatiently aroused herself from a relapse 
into her old dreams, and turned her thoughts toward 
the task on which she had come. Roger’s forget-me- 
nots made a patch of blue on the white cloth on the 


JEAN’S BOLD PLUNGE 


245 


dresser ; they reminded her of the manly young fellow 
and of how good he had been to her in starting, what 
courage he had infused into her frightened heart. She 
felt sure that Eoger would say that it was better to 
have come down to Boston all alone, to try to help her 
father to avoid a mistake, than it would be to have a 
book on the shelves of the Boston Public Library. 

“ Why not both ? ” thought Jean, divesting herself of 
her white blouse and getting on her dressing sack to 
shake down over it her masses of fine brown hair, 
which she herself disapproved as being “ everybody’s 
color,” but which those who loved her found beautiful 
in its lustrous depth of color and silken fineness. 

Jean wound the soft hair into place around her head : 
it crowned her abundantly. Then she put on the soft 
white gown which she had brought to dine in, and went 
down to dinner early, partly to avoid the more crowded 
later hours in the room which she must enter alone, 
and partly to give herself a glimpse of the city before 
it was too dark to venture on the streets unaccompanied. 

Jean asked to be seated at a small table where an 
elderly woman, with severe gray hair, in a silken gown 
of the same color, eye-glasses and a steel trimmed bag, 
sat dining alone, also. She was uncommunicative, not 
to say forbidding, but Jean felt as safe at her table as 
she would have with a granite monument set over her 


246 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


—which this stone-colored lady somewhat resembled— 
and she ate as good a dinner as her slight appetite al¬ 
lowed under this negative protection. 

After dinner Jean went to walk, but there was not 
much pleasure in solitary exploring at an hour when 
those who were similarly bent were companioned. 
Jean found Commonwealth Avenue and wandered 
slowly down to the Public Garden, where she spent a 
quiet hour among the richness of its blossoms and 
spreading trees. But she was glad to return to the 
hotel early and to fall asleep to gain strength and cour¬ 
age for an enterprise that looked more and more dis¬ 
maying the nearer its hour came. The sunshine which 
she had neglected to exclude awakened Jean in her east¬ 
ward room by five o’clock, which is a weary hour to 
awaken in an unfamiliar city, where one is alone. Jean 
tried to coax back sleep, but it had flown. She wrapped 
herself picturesquely in a light quilt that had lain across 
the foot of her bed and sat by the window, her head on 
her arms, looking absently at the sleeping houses op¬ 
posite and picturing the glorious burst of light that mo¬ 
ment as the sun shone low over the ocean before the 
casement window of her room at home. Tidewater 
seemed far away, and already lost to her. 

“ I suppose I’m hungry,” said Jean to herself, which 
showed that she had learned to attribute emotions to 


JEAN’S BOLD PLUNGE 


247 


their frequent cause—physical conditions—and not 
only to great mental and moral upheavals, as she 
would once have done. 

“ East rooms are best to sleep in,” said Jean aloud, 
grateful for the touch of the sun’s warm hand, like a 
friendly caress on her cheek. “ I like to be at the be¬ 
ginning of the day. I’m like Elaine, the lily maid of 
Astolat, who ‘ high in a tower toward the east guarded 
the sacred shield of Launcelot.’ I’ve no shield, but— 
maybe I’m the knight instead of the lily maid; I’d 
rather be. I mean to be my mother’s knight to-day, 
though I am her daughter and not her son.” 

The fancy pleased Jean and she began to hum to her¬ 
self a droning little tune f somewhat like a contented 
bee in the sunshine, and at last she fell into a light 
doze, from which she awakened to find that it was after 
six. 

Jean had determined on breakfasting at half-past 
seven, for, though she wanted to get to the office of 
Stewart, Reed & Company as early as she could, in 
order to be sure of returning to Tidewater that after¬ 
noon, she knew that nine o’clock was as soon as she 
might hope to find the firm ready to be visited. So 
she dawdled over her bath and dressing, and then over 
her breakfast, consuming so much time that, when she 
returned to her room at half-past eight, she got into a 


248 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


small panic of fear that she should be late, and flurried 
and hurried her hat and coat and gloves on, and rushed 
down the hall to the elevator and breathlessly took a 
car, all in such a short space of time that she actually 
reached Boylston Street, where Stewart, Reed & Com¬ 
pany’s offices were, at a quarter to nine. 

“ Dear me! How can people run railroads when it’s 
so hard to get one girl running on schedule time ! ” she 
thought whimsically. “ Perhaps it won’t matter; per¬ 
haps this is an early firm. The early firm catches the 
bird; Rod always says I’m a bird when he’s severely 
sarcastic! Jean Wolcott, you are scared! When you’re 
scared you always get feeble-minded and think in non¬ 
sense that isn’t clever, but tries to be. Now, I’m not 
going to let myself get into a funk! ” 

There was some ground for Jean’s accusing herself 
of terror; she had walked past the general doorway of 
the building which sheltered Stewart, Reed & Company, 
in order to give herself more time to pluck up heart. 
She was overwhelmed, on the eve of her interview, with 
a realization of what an unusual thing she had done. 
It was strange to come here to ask of these men, on 
whom she had no claim, information as to Mr. Dillon, 
who, judging by the frequency of their letters to him, 
must be a friend, or a business associate of theirs. And 
how should she get about her task ? What should she 


JEAN’S BOLD PLUNGE 


249 


say? Just what did she want to ask? Something 
that could not be put into words: Whether or not 
Anthony Dillon was a rascal! Certainly she had un¬ 
dertaken a difficult bit of diplomacy! She had never 
been inside a great office building like this one: its im¬ 
pressive entrance paralyzed her. How could she ever 
open one of its office doors and walk in, facing men 
who would, at the least, think her intrusive and proba¬ 
bly silly ? 

Poor Jean loitered with trembling knees and suffo¬ 
cating heart beats slowly onward, down Boylston Street, 
trying to master her deadly, gripping fear. Then the 
thought of that morning recurred to her, that she, 
though a girl, must be her mother’s knight. The title 
of that poem which she had never written, “ The Ac¬ 
colade of Courage,” crossed her mind, with its one line 
that had come to life: 

“ Courage, the king, hath touched me with his sword.” 

Jean pulled herself together. “Yes,” she thought, 
“ I’m going to believe that I have received an accolade 
to be my mother’s knight. That the king has sent me 
on this quest. And afterward I’ll go to the library and 
see Abbey’s pictures of the quest of the Holy Grail! 
Come, Jean Wolcott, do what you came to do and do 
it well! It can’t be so very awful, and if you fail no 


250 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


one will be the worse for it. This office building isn’t 
an ogre’s den! ” 

With a mental shake, Jean turned right about face, 
retraced her steps and passed under the tall white 
portal that was the introduction to Stewart, Reed & 
Company’s domain. The office directory in the lower 
hall informed her that the firm she was seeking was 
domiciled on the fourth floor. Thither she repaired 
under the elevating guidance of an ebony youth who 
ran the electric lift, and who when he reached her floor 
almost forgot to move the throttle of the car to its 
checking notch, so interested was he in his single pas¬ 
senger of that* trip up. Jean noted and wondered at 
this interest: she did not realize how unusual an expe¬ 
rience it was to the negro boy to find in his car a fair 
and slender young creature, with cheeks flushed by 
Tidewater’s sea winds, and with the dreams of the sea 
in her wide-open gray eyes. 

“ Your floor, four’ floor, miss,” said the smiling ele¬ 
vator boy and Jean stepped forth. 

No more turning back, no more hesitancy now: she 
had arrived! For straight in front of Jean as she left 
the elevator was the name of Stewart, Reed & Com¬ 
pany, in black letters on an opaque glass door, and 
thither she bent her steps. 


CHAPTER XVI 

jean’s coueage 


J EAX hesitated before the office door for a moment, 
uncertain as to the etiquette of office visiting. 
Should she regard it as a private apartment, and knock, 
or as a public place, like a shop, and walk in ? 

She decided that an office was open to the public; 
she turned the knob of the door and entered, standing 
hesitant upon the threshold, just inside the door. There 
were several clerks in this outer office, two of whom 
looked up when Jean opened the door, and, seeing the 
unexpected apparition of a young and pretty girl, one 
of them arose and came forward, to offer her assistance 
politely. 

“ May I see Mr. Stewart, or Mr. Reed ? Or any one 
belonging to the firm ? ” asked Jean, devoutly hoping 
that she should know what to say to one of these 
gentlemen when she saw him. 

“Mr. Reed is out of town. Mr. Stewart is here, 

but- Will you give me your card ? He may see 

you,” said the clerk. 


251 


252 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ He would not know my name. Ask him, if you 
please, if he will be kind enough to give me a few 
moments. I am Miss Wolcott, but I do not live in 
Boston; he would not know me,” said Jean, her 
courage rising now that her adventure was under way. 

“ Sounds like a book agent, or a charity collector, 
yet she looks like nothing but a mighty sweet girl,” 
thought the clerk. He wisely kept this impression to 
himself, and, first offering Jean a chair, he departed to 
the inner office to try to persuade his chief to set aside 
his rule and see this unknown caller. 

He was successful. Returning, he courteously bade 
Jean follow him. He ushered Jean into the private 
office and withdrew. Jean found herself facing an 
elderly man with a stern expression, greatly increased 
by the bushy gray eyebrows which presided formidably 
over the aquiline nose. 

“ Mr. Stewart ? ” murmured Jean, faintly interroga¬ 
tory. 

“ Be seated, Miss-” Mr. Stewart motioned to 

a chair and paused for Jean to supply the name he 
lacked. 

“Wolcott. I am Jean Wolcott, but that does not 
tell you anything,” said Jean. 

Mr. Stewart shook his head. “ You came on busi¬ 
ness, Miss Wolcott ? ” he hinted. 


JEAN’S COUBAGE 


253 


Jean reminded herself of her own mental instruc¬ 
tions to be brief and businesslike. “ I came to ask 
you, Mr. Stewart, if you knew a young man called 
Anthony Dillon ? ” she said. 

“ Yes, I know him,” said Mr. Stewart, bringing the 
heavy brows frowningly together and scrutinizing Jean 
from beneath their ajnbush. 

“ Would you mind telling me if you know him well? 
Is he—do you think him—well, is he reliable ? ” Jean 
faltered, blushing furiously, for the keen, steady gaze 
of those eyes under the cliffs of eyebrows was most 
disconcerting. 

“ H’m! ” the old gentleman cleared his throat, noting 
the blush and embarrassment of the girl and entirely 
misconstruing Jean’s symptoms. “ Mr. Dillon is a 
clever and reliable cleric; I cannot tell you anything 
about him in his social relations, Miss Wolcott.” 

Jean straightened herself, seeing that the old gentle¬ 
man suspected her of a girlish personal interest in the 
impressive Anthony Dillon. 

“ I am not interested in Mr. Dillon’s social relations, 
sir,” she said quickly. “ It was his business reliability 
I meant. I should like very much to know whether 
you think he can be trust—depended upon ? ” 

“ These are singular questions to be propounded by 
a slip of a girl like you to an old man like me, and one 


254 


HEE DAUGHTER JEAN 


whom she has never seen before, Miss Wolcott, permit 
me to suggest. If I did not consider Mr. Dillon trust¬ 
worthy should I be likely to employ him ? ” asked Mr. 
Stewart testily. 

“ Oh, you do employ him ! ” cried Jean, surprised 
into unconsciousness of Mr. Stewart’s annoyance. 

“Mr. Anthony Dillon has been the confidential 
clerk of Stewart, Reed & Company for more than 
five years,” said Mr. Stewart, rising as if to indicate 
that the interview was at an end. “ I am afraid, Miss 
Wolcott, that unless you can give me an excellent 
reason for inquiring about Mr. Dillon, I shall have to 
beg to be excused from discussing him. I regret that 
Mr. Dillon is not here to answer for himself, if there 
is any reason why you should ask questions about him. 
Mr. Dillon has been given a vacation of four months— 
which is enough to show you that we appreciate his 
work for us—and is now at Kennebunkport, Maine.” 

“ At Tidewater, Massachusetts,” Jean corrected 
him, looking up into his face as she kept her seat. 

“ Eh ? What’s that you say ? Mr. Dillon is in 
Maine,” said the old gentleman sharply. 

“ Pardon me,” said Jean, speaking quietly, though 
her heart beat hard as she found herself getting on 
the trail. “ Mr. Dillon has been in Tidewater since 
May. I live there.” 


JEAN’S COURAGE 255 

Mr. Stewart touched a button on the wall and a 
boy responded. 

“ Ask Mr. Carew to come here. And bring me that 
map of the Massachusetts coast that I had made last 
year : Mr. Carew will know which one, if you don’t,” 
Mr. Stewart said to the boy. Then, while Jean sat 
wondering what was to happen, Mr. Stewart silently 
paced the floor, frowning heavily and utterly ignor¬ 
ing her, till the boy returned, carrying a large roll, and 
closely followed by a man in the early thirties, whose 
face invited confidence. 

“ This is Mr. Carew, the junior member of the firm, 
Miss Wolcott. Mr. Carew, this is Miss Wolcott, of 
whom I know nothing more than that she appeared 
from—she says—Tidewater, inquiring of me as to the 
character of Anthony Dillon.” 

Mr. Stewart unrolled the great map by hanging it 
on a hook in the wall and letting it drop to its 
length. He rested his finger upon Tidewater and the 
cliff where the Wolcott house stood. The map com¬ 
prised only that part of the coast a few miles either 
side of Tidewater, and was drawn to a large scale. 

“Miss Wolcott, do you happen to know this neigh¬ 
borhood ? ” Mr. Stewart asked. 

“ Our house stands there, my father’s house, the one 
Anthony Dillon is trying to buy,” cried Jean. 


256 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Mr. Carew started and the senior and junior part¬ 
ners exchanged glances. 

“ Miss Wolcott says that Dillon has been down at 
Tidewater for months, since May in fact; that means 
all the time since he went on his vacation,” said Mr. 
Stewart. “ When I heard her name it did not occur to 
me to connect her with the Wolcott house in Tidewater. 
She came here to inquire about Anthony Dillon. Per¬ 
haps you would better begin at the beginning and tell 
us your reasons for being interested in this young man, 
Miss Wolcott.” 

“ Anthony is in Maine,” protested Mr. Carew, in a 
puzzled way. “ You say he wants to buy that old 
Wolcott house at Tidewater ? Dillon ? ” 

“Mr. Dillon has been in Tidewater since May,” re¬ 
peated Jean. “He came to me—I am keeping house 
this summer, because my mother is ill at a sanitorium 
—and he wanted me to let him board with us. Of 
course I couldn’t think of it; I didn’t know how to 
keep house when I began. After that Mr. Dillon made 
a great deal of my brother Rodney. Rod is only a lit¬ 
tle past fifteen and he was flattered by Mr. Dillon’s 
notice ; he is all wrapped up in him now. This brought 
Mr. Dillon to our house a great deal. Father likes to 
talk to him. Father is a dear, dreaming father, busy 
inventing air-ship rudders and anchors and no end of 


JEAN’S COURAGE 


257 


things; they are all going to make our fortune—dear 
father! Mr. Dillon has been very nice in getting fa¬ 
ther to tell him about these things and father likes him, 
too. Rod is infatuated with him ! I never could en¬ 
dure Mr. Dillon, and Steve, the younger boy, feels as I 
do. Mr. Dillon first talked to Rod about selling the 
old house; he told him it was wrong to hold it, and 
after he had made Rod believe that it would be a fine 
thing for us to sell our home, he began to talk about it 
to father. Father was not enough interested in money 
to heed what Mr. Dillon said about the gain he would 
make in selling the old place; it had no effect at all on 
father—at first! Then Mr. Dillon offered Rod a share 
in the stock, or something like that—it may have been 
a commission—if he would get father to sell. When 
Rodney told me that I hated it. It seemed to prove 
me right in distrusting Mr. Dillon—to offer a bribe to 
a boy to get him to manage his own father into doing 
something he didn’t approve! ” 

Jean paused, breathless. Mr. Stewart regarded her 
gravely, but with new and kindly interest. “ I do not 
understand, my dear child,” he said. “ Stock in what 
did Mr. Dillon offer this boy ? ” 

“ In the Land Improvement Company he purposed 
starting on the Tidewater coast; he had planned to put 
up houses for a summer colony on our land,” said Jean. 


258 


HEB DAUGHTEB JEAN 


“ Ah! ” breathed Mr. Stewart, while, at the same in¬ 
stant, Mr. Carew cried: 

“ Impossible! ” 

“ Impossible for this child to have mistaken anything 
so definite,” murmured Mr. Stewart. 

“ I didn’t like the idea of offering Bod a bribe, not 
one bit,” Jean resumed her story as the two gentlemen 
waited for her to go on. “ But Bod did not succeed in 
earning it by convincing father. Then, just when I 
thought all danger was over, Mr. Dillon made father 
much fonder of him, and then he offered to admit fa¬ 
ther as a sort of partner in the scheme—when he would 
not sell, you see!—and father has risen to that bait and 
has almost made up his mind to sell on the new terms. 
I have been dreadfully worried about it. I know 
how bad it would be for us to sell that lovely old place 
for three thousand dollars, with a share in a com¬ 
pany that may not be any good at all. And I know 
how mother would feel to come home to any other 
house. My mother is getting better and it may not be 
long before she is able to come home ! ” Jean smiled 
so joyously at her hearers that they instantly shared her 
irresistible happiness in that announcement. “Steve 
and I tried to see some way to coax father not to sell, 
but we couldn’t. Then yesterday Steve—that’s the 
thirteen-year-old boy—found a bundle of letters which 


JEAN’S COURAGE 


259 


Mr. Dillon had dropped. Steve brought them to me— 
I had three friends there—and we looked at the letters 
only at the outside, of course, but we saw what Steve 
had been bright enough to see at once, and that was 
that every single letter had been sent to Kennebunk- 
port and readdressed to Tidewater, and that they were 
all from one firm ; this one. Steve saw in an instant, 
and we all saw it too, that it was strange that any firm 
should have to write one man so often and for so long, 
and not know his right address. If we hadn’t been 
wishing we had some proof that we were right not to 
trust Mr. Dillon I suppose we should not have thought 
so much about it, but Steve and I were wild to get 
hold of something that should turn father and Rod from 
him. So I said I’d come straight here and see if I 
could find out if there were anything wrong, or not. 
I’m going home this afternoon.” Jean ended her story 
with a gasp and fell back in her chair, suddenly realiz¬ 
ing what a long story it had been and that neither of 
her hearers had interrupted her by a syllable. 

“ Incredible ! ” exclaimed Mr. Carew. “ I would 
have trusted Dillon wholly.” 

“ We all trusted him,” said Mr. Stewart. “ But I am 
older than you, Richard, and I have been deceived often 
enough to be saddened, rather than surprised, by new 
instances of treachery. Miss Wolcott, your instinct of 


260 


HEE DAUGHTEE JEAN 


distrust was true. You were not only wiser than your 
father and your young brother, but wiser than we who 
have employed this young man for several years. I 
will tell you the half of your story which you do not 
know. This firm had a plan to found in Tidewater such 
a colony as the one that Mr. Dillon has announced as 
his own, interesting your father in it. We were not 
quite ready to move in the matter, but should have been 
soon. Mr. Dillon has used the knowledge which, as 
our confidential clerk, he obtained here, for his own 
ends. Getting from us the indulgence of a long vaca¬ 
tion, he has represented to us that he was spending it at 
Kennebunkport, whereas he went directly to Tidewater 
with the intention of buying up the sites which we had 
selected for our plan, at a lower figure than we expected 
to pay for them. Evidently he intended, either to fore¬ 
stall us with the colony bungalows, or else to force us 
to buy him out at a good profit. It was a likely enough 
bit of treachery, but it affords a new instance of the 
superiority of direct simplicity to tricks. You are 
young, an inexperienced girl, but you not only have 
foiled Mr. Anthony Dillon’s scheme, you have also put 
us under a heavy obligation to you by revealing him to 
us in his true character. Permit me to congratulate 
you, and to thank you, my dear.”’ 

“ I was so afraid to come ! ” cried Jean, beginning to 


JEAN’S COURAGE 


261 


tremble, now that the ordeal was over. “ But I couldn’t 
let mother come home to no home.” Jean laughed, 
though with a sob in her voice, over her way of stating 
this. “ Now I’m going back to Tidewater.” 

“ Now you are going to let the firm of Stewart, 
Reed & Company prove its grateful appreciation,” 
Mr. Stewart corrected her. 

Jean arose. “ Oh, no, Mr. Stewart! ” she cried 
hastily. “ Stewart, Reed & Company are not under 
the least obligation to me. I had no idea of doing any¬ 
thing for them; all I wanted was to help the Wolcotts. 
I am grateful to you for making it certain that Mr. 
Dillon can’t buy our house. It has all turned out far 
better than I dared hope it would.” 

“ I can’t say that I quite enjoy finding a man I 
trusted is treacherous,” said Mr. Stewart, “ but if he is 
so, it is valuable knowledge. If our project of forming 
a summer colony at Tidewater is carried out I think 
that you must be made a stockholder: we will let it 
rest at that for the present. Are you going back to¬ 
day, did you say ? ” 

“ Oh, dear me, yes, indeed ! ” cried Jean. “ Helen 
Lumley—my best friend—is keeping house for me, but 
I must hurry back. There is a train at three which I’m 
to take.” 

“ What a little housewife ! ” exclaimed Mr. Stewart, 


262 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


and Jean saw that his keen eyes could smile kindly. 
“ What are you going to do in the meantime ? ” 

“ I thought that I should have time to look at the 
prophets again,” said Jean. 

“ At the profits ? ” echoed Mr. Stewart, misunder¬ 
standing. “ Are you a financier ? ” 

“ Oh, I mean Sargent’s prophets, in the library,” ex¬ 
plained Jean, and they all laughed. 

“ I am sorry that my house is closed and my family at 
Nahant,” began Mr. Stewart, but Mr. Carew interposed. 

“ Here is where I interfere,” he said. “ I shall take 
Miss W olcott to lunch, if she will be so kind as to allow 
me to, and perhaps I may look at the prophets again 
with her—may I, Miss Wolcott ? ” 

“ Thank you,” hesitated Jean. 

“ Shall we go directly to the library ? ” proposed Mr. 
Carew, construing her hesitation as an acceptance. 

“It is not quite ten o’clock,” said Jean, suggesting 
the impossibility of lunching at that hour. 

“ I will get my hat and give the clerks some instruc¬ 
tions ; I will join you in a moment,” said Mr. Carew, 
hastening out of the office. 

Jean shyly held out her hand to Mr. Stewart. “ You 
have been very kind,” she said. “ Thank you for listen¬ 
ing to me. I hope that you will find a better clerk, 
that is if you dismiss Mr. Dillon.” 


JEAN’S COUEAGE 


263 


“ I shall certainly dismiss Mr. Dillon,” said the old 
gentleman with a chuckle. “My telegram recalling 
him for that dismissal will probably be in Tidewater 
before you are. Good-bye, my dean, and a pleasant 
journey to your beloved home. We shall undoubtedly 
meet again. If I do not abandon my plan we are cer¬ 
tain to meet, and then you are to be one of the new 
company’s stockholders. I am glad to have seen your 
blossom face in the office this stiffing morning. Good¬ 
bye, little Miss Wolcott, child.” 

“ Good-bye,” said Jean, surprised to find herself feel¬ 
ing that she was taking leave of a friend. 

It was somewhat oppressive to Jean at first to visit 
the library under the escort of a stranger not old enough 
to give her the confidence which Mr. Stewart’s years 
inspired, yet too much her elder to put her at her ease, 
as a younger person would. But Mr. Carew knew how 
to make Jean forget herself, and she was soon chatting 
freely, telling Mr. Carew much of herself which she did 
not realize that she was revealing. They went to lunch 
at the most splendid of the city’s hotels, Mr. Carew 
guessing that its gorgeousness would interest Jean more 
than the quieter dining-room which he preferred. Jean 
awoke to the consciousness that she was having a de¬ 
lightful and young-ladylike lunch, as she sat opposite 
this man, whose charm pervaded the occasion, no longer 


264 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


embarrassing her. It was the girl’s first personal 
glimpse of a beautiful world, widely different from the 
simple Tidewater life that was hers. 

“I should like to live,” announced Jean suddenly, as 
the waiter withdrew from ear-shot—she found his pres¬ 
ence oppressive—“ I should like to live in Tidewater, 
close to the sea, just as I do now, but I should like to 
have around me lovely houses, filled with clever people, 
and never know how any housework was done! Just 
live beautifully, among beauty every minute.” 

“The dream of Utopia and of artistic communities ! ” 
smiled Mr. Carew. “ I have a friend who has tried to 
interest me in helping to build a settlement along those 
lines. Tidewater would be a good place for it. Per¬ 
haps, if my chief drops the idea of starting a Tide¬ 
water Land Improvement Company it could be carried 
out there. I suppose I could do what Miss Balfour 
wishes, even though-” 

“Miss Balfour!” cried Jean, electrified. “Do you 
know Miss Balfour ? Why, of course! And I never 
thought! She said she used to know the 6 and Com¬ 
pany ’ of Stewart, Reed & Company quite well, and 
3 r ou must be he! She is at Tidewater this summer.” 

Mr. Carew, in his turn, seemed electrified. “ Hester 
Balfour ? Are you sure ? ” he cried. 

“ Indeed I am! Miss Hester Balfour, the writer, is 



JEAN’S COUEAGE 


265 


there: I couldn’t mean any other. She is perfectly 
lovely! She came to see me so sweetly when she first 
went down! It was when—when some verses of mine 
were published. And she was coming up with me to 
see me through this trip, only a telegram came from 
her publishers, and she had to stay in Tidewater to 
make some changes in her novel. And you are the one 
she knew ! Isn’t she the loveliest, loveliest thing! ” 

“ The loveliest,” affirmed Mr. Carew, plainly mean¬ 
ing this literally. “ The witch that she is to be within 
easy reach and not tell me! I thought that she was in 
the depths of the Adirondacks! We have not seen 
each other for a good while. Now, little Miss Wol¬ 
cott -” 

“ More than five feet three and nearly seventeen,” 
said Jean, her eyes sparkling as she scented a romance. 

“ But you were a little girl so lately! ” said Mr. 
Carew. “ However, Miss Wolcott unqualified, then— 
let me tell you what is to happen. By your leave, I 
am going with you to Tidewater this afternoon. Will 
you let me go down with you and see your pretty coast 
and also your pretty acquaintance ? ” 

“It would be the very nicest ending to my lucky 
trip,” said Jean. “ If you won’t mind my housekeep¬ 
ing, won’t you come to the Wolcott house and let us 
make you comfortable ? ” 


266 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Thank you, hospitable little lady! The mere invi¬ 
tation makes me not only comfortable, but happy. If 
I could be sure that I was not in the way, I should be 
delighted to accept it. I am afraid that I shall have to 
take you back to your hotel, go to my apartment for a 
bag and the necessary provisions for a brief trip, and 
meet you at the station. I am fearfully sorry to treat 
you so unceremoniously, but you see! It is now ten 
minutes to two, and our train leaves at three.” Mr. 
Carew held his watch open toward Jean to prove that 
he had to hasten. 

“ Oh, you mustn’t take me to my hotel; just put me 
on the car and I’ll go to it as straight as a die! ” cried 
Jean. “ Don’t mind treating me unceremoniously; it 
is the greatest fun to be taking you to Tidewater in this 
picnic fashion ! Can I telegraph from here ? I must 
send word to ask Step-grand to bring father home to¬ 
night. I think I’ll ask her to stay with me,” said Jean, 
instinctively reaching out for a chaperon, although to 
her eyes Mr. Carew’s thirty-odd years looked almost 
venerable. 

“Is Mr. Wolcott away?” asked Mr. Carew. Mr. 
Wolcott’s absence might prevent his accepting Jean’s 
hospitality. 

“Only at his stepmother’s, right in town,” said 
Jean. “ I got Step-grand to invite father to visit her 


JEAN’S COURAGE 


267 


till I could find out something about Mr. Dillon. 
Father is so enthusiastic—when he is interested at all 
—that I wanted him to be away till I could hunt up 
Mr. Dillon. Though, till the letters were found, there 
really seemed to be no way of doing it.” 

Mr. Carew threw back his head and laughed his fill, 
as he pushed toward Jean a telegram blank and a 
pencil, which the waiter had brought him, at his 
request. 

“Such a singular girl as you are, Miss Sherlock- 
Holmes Wolcott! ” he said. 

Jean wrote: “ Come with father to spend night. 

Am bringing business guest.” “Will that do?” she 
asked, offering Mr. Carew the telegram. 

Again Mr. Carew laughed. “ Am I a business 
guest ? ” he inquired. “Yet I suppose that conveys 
our relations as well as a telegram could do it. Yes, 
that is all right, Miss Wolcott.” 

“ I don’t think you are one bit like a business ac¬ 
quaintance ; you have been so good to me,” said Jean, 
following her new friend from the dining-room. “ But 
I wanted Step-grand and father to guess that one of the 
firm of Stewart, Reed & Company was coming with 
me and I didn’t know how else to suggest it in ten 
words.” 

“ Of course; and it was skilfully done,” said Mr. 


268 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Carew, this time with entire sobriety, not even a 
twinkle indicating that though ten words was the 
limit of a sum paid for telegraphing, it was not the 
limit of the wires’ capacity. 


CHAPTER XVII 

jean’s triumph 


J EAN hurried through the brief task of repacking 
her suit-case at her hotel, settled her account and 
nervously took a car to the station, only to wait there 
for more than quarter of an hour for her unexpectedly 
acquired traveling companion. She was in a fever of 
nervousness when Mr. Carew calmly looked into the 
waiting-room, three minutes before train time. 

“ All ready ? ” he asked with a grave face, but with 
a twinkle as he ngted Jean’s purpling cheeks and 
dilated eyes, betraying that she was not merely ready 
to start on their journey, but was ready to fly off on a 
tangent as the hour for starting grew but seconds dis¬ 
tant and Mr. Carew did not appear. 

The train that took them down to Tidewater was a 
better one than had brought Jean to Boston: it made 
respectable time. Besides this, the breeze was from 
the ocean and it was not long before the effect of the 
proximity of the sea was felt in the refreshment of 
the close car. 


269 


270 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Mr. Carew drew from Jean every least detail of her 
acquaintance with Miss Balfour. She told him every¬ 
thing that she could remember of the author, her 
descriptions so colored by her ardent admiration for 
Miss Balfour that even her lover must have been satis¬ 
fied. That he was her lover was perfectly clear to 
Jean from the first, and, like a true girl, she reveled 
in her contact with a romance. By the time they had 
reached their destination Jean was entirely in Mr. 
Carew’s confidence. Without a direct word being 
spoken, he had made known to Jean his hope to make 
Miss Balfour his wife, and Jean had silently echoed 
the wish and pledged herself to further it, if she 
could. 

At Tidewater Steve, in response to Jean’s telegram, 
met them with Old King Cole and the old-fashioned 
carryall which was the Wolcotts’ comfortable, though 
unstylish family chariot. 

“ This is the boy who found the letters, my brother 
Stephen. Steve, this is Mr. Carew, one of the firm of 
Stewart, Reed & Company,” Jean introduced them. 

On the way to the house Jean told Steve the story 
of her adventures in Boston, Mr. Carew helping with 
the part that related to the firm’s plan to transform 
Tidewater and Anthony Dillon’s source of suggestion 
for his version of it, as laid before Mr. Wolcott. 


JEAN’S TRIUMPH 


271 


Steve listened in a silence that Jean knew covered a 
satisfaction quite as keen as her open demonstration 
of joy. 

“ I don’t much like such a smooth chap as that 
Dillon, myself, but he knew how to get around Rod 
all right,” said Steve quietly. “There’s the house, 
Mr. Carew; it’s over a hundred and fifty years old and 
Jean and I don’t want to sell it. We’re afraid we may 
not have time to get another Wolcott house up to this 
age.” 

“ It does seem as though you might be hard put to 
it to reproduce a century and a half in your lifetime,” 
assented Mr. Carew, who was beginning to find the 
sober boy, with his high forehead and steady, grave, 
yet humorous eyes, as attractive as the sweet girl 
whose acquaintance he had made so unexpectedly that 
morning. 

Mr. Carew exclaimed with delight, as he was ushered 
into the hall. It was wide, running straight through 
the house. Its furniture was an old mahogany Wol¬ 
cott chair, standing beside an old mahogany Wolcott 
table, on which stood a jar of gladiolas. Fine old steel 
engravings hung on the walls and a beautiful colonial 
staircase with a mahogany hand-rail and alternate spiral 
and medallion rails, painted in creamy white, led in a 
gentle curve to the upper floor. 


272 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ My dear child, you were quite right to struggle to 
hold this house I I would take in washing rather than 
sell it! ” cried Mr. Carew, enthusiastically, and from 
that moment Steve was his captive. 

“ Oh, Helen, you are still here! ” cried Jean, catch¬ 
ing Helen in an embrace out of all proportion to the 
length of time that they had been separated. “ Indeed 
you are good to me! This is Mr. Carew. Miss Lumley, 
Mr. Carew. Where is Dorcas ? ” 

“Up-stairs,” Dorcas called down for herself. “I 
made myunease sauce for supper, just one drop of oil 
at a time. Winnie will tell you it’s good.” 

“ ‘ My—unease ’ is the right kind of sauce for uneasy 
Dorcas to make! ” Jean whispered to Helen, stifling a 
laugh not to mortify Dorcas before Mr. Carew. 

“She’s been an angel child since you went away; 
look out for trouble, Jean! ” Helen whispered back. 

“ Perhaps,” suggested Mr. Carew, consulting his 
watch, “ since the Head of the House has only just ar¬ 
rived with me, she would be glad to have me take my¬ 
self off for a little while and look up Miss Balfour ? 
Wouldn’t you be glad to be left with Miss Lumley, to 
talk over yesterday and gather your household into 
your hands again, without me on your hands, Miss 
Wolcott ? ” 

“ You wouldn’t be the least bit in the way,” said 


JEAN’S TRIUMPH 


273 


Jean. “ If you went out on our porch you would be so 
delighted with the cliff, the dune, the ocean, that you’d 
not thank any one for trying to entertain you ! But 
I was thinking—if I could muster up courage—I should 
like to ask Miss Balfour to tea to-night, only I can’t do 
what ought to be done for her, it is so late now. But 
authors don’t care if they do have poor suppers, do 
they ? ” 

“ Authors care for good suppers more than for any¬ 
thing else, unless it is for royalties which lead to good 
suppers,” laughed Mr. Carew. “ Miss Balfour is not a 
worldly little creature, though. And authors do care 
a great deal for good times and they know when a 
simple supper is quite as good as a banquet. I feel 
sure Miss Balfour would be delighted to come here to¬ 
night—I mean I hope she would be. My misgiving is 
not on account of the supper. It is owing to the good 
ground for doubt that she would care to be here, in 
spite of all you would do for her, that I think I’d 
better go look her up before she accepts the invita¬ 
tion.” 

“ I have no fear she would not like to come, except 
that we may not have anything fine to give her, in 
spite of Dorcas’ ‘myunease sauce’! ” laughed Jean, with 
a glance of understanding and sympathy. 

“ Here is my little sister, Dorcas, Mr. Carew,” she 


274 


HEE DAUGHTEK JEAN 


added, as Dorcas appeared on the stairs, a picture in a 
white frock, with red ribbons surmounting her black 
hair and eyes. 

“ My word, you are a family of contrasts ! ” cried Mr. 
Carew. “ The three I have so far seen are utterly un¬ 
like. This child looks as if she were a spark flown out 
of the big fireplace.” 

“ She’s a good deal like one! ” said Jean. “Dorcas, 
will you show Mr. Carew the way to the Cliff House ? 
And will you take a note for me to Miss Balfour, ask¬ 
ing her to come back with Mr. Carew to tea ? ” 

Jean wrote a hasty message, wondering at herself 
for venturing to write thus to a celebrity. Everything 
was happening, the world was moving rapidly in these 
days, and Jean had a new sense of being equal to keep¬ 
ing pace with it. 

Dorcas returned from her errand and came into the 
house “ like a lightning bug,” as Steve said, the simile 
being suggested by Dorcas’ flushed cheeks and red rib¬ 
bons. 

“ She’ll come! ” Dorcas cried. “ Well, you ought to 
have seen her when she saw him ! If she wasn’t sur¬ 
prised ! Glad, too! ” Dorcas’ eyes danced. 44 Good¬ 
ness, girls, wouldn’t you think they’d be too old to act 
like that ? Why, she must be more’n twenty-five ! 
But I guess they like each other and have had a fuss. 


JEAN’S TRIUMPH 


275 


It’s interesting; I mean to watch ’em to-night. Pooh, 
Jean; your authors are just like people ! ” 

“ That’s the point, Dorcas,” cried Helen. “ That’s 
what I’ve been trying to make Jean see.” 

Mrs. Claudia Wolcott arrived just before tea time, 
with Mr. Wolcott, smilingly unconscious of the vigor¬ 
ous protection which he had been receiving from his 
stepmother and daughter. 

“ I’ve brought you biscuits; they are still warm, 
Jean,” said Mrs. Wolcott, as she entered. “ I had them 
made just as soon as I got your telegram, and also some 
croquettes. All you have to do is to set the biscuits 
in the oven and the croquettes over the fire. I thought 
you might need something extra. Is everything all 
right?” 

“Everything is all right, Step-grand, because I’ve 
found out that Anthony Dillon is all wrong. He’s 
been a scamp, toward us, but still more toward his em¬ 
ployers—this is one of them come down with me. 
Thank you ever so much for adding to the supper! 
Miss Balfour is coming to tea,” said Jean. 

Miss Balfour arrived in due season, under Mr. Ca¬ 
re w’s escort. She took Jean’s face in her hands and 
kissed again and again the soft cheeks, flushed with 
Jean’s rapid efforts to get Mr. Carew’s room in order 
and to help Winnie with the supper. 


276 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ You funny little heroine! ” Miss Balfour said. 
“ Mr. Carew has been telling me of all that happened 
in Boston and how surprised he and Mr. Stewart were, 
first by your coming and next by your revelations. He 
said you 4 came down like a lamb on the wolves! ’ ” 

44 He has been so nice to me! ” said Jean, at once 
gratefully and artfully. 

“Yes. To me, too,” said Miss Balfour demurely, 
and she kissed Jean again, hard, when Jean laughed. 
“ I do so long to hear the story ! ” she added. 

44 Didn’t Mr. Carew tell you all of it ? ” asked Jean. 

44 Not all of it, Jeannie. He had to tell me some¬ 
thing about himself. Mr. Carew and I parted on bad 
terms ; we haven’t met in a long time. I was wrong, 
but I was trying to hold out, not confessing it. When 
I saw him coming up the Cliff House steps I confessed 
it without thinking—by being glad. So I have not 
heard everything about your Boston adventures,” said 
Miss Balfour rapidly, for Jean’s ear alone. 

44 Not till after supper,” Mrs. Claudia Wolcott said, 
when they were all seated at the table and the others 
begged Jean to tell them about her trip. 44 No one can 
be a hostess and a historian at the same time. Let 
Jean make us all comfortable and after tea we will 
gather on the porch to listen to her Odyssey.” 

44 1 had no idea that Jean was going to Boston,” said 


JEAN’S TRIUMPH 


277 


Mr. Wolcott. “ I should have been glad to have sent 
for some thin silk; I need it in an aeronautical experi¬ 
ment. Did you go to the dentist, daughter ? ” 

“ No, father dear ; I went to—to a sort of Court of 
Appeals,” said Jean. 

Everybody was beamingly happy, except Rodney. 
Rod looked uneasy and glum throughout the little feast 
at which all but him got into riotously high spirits as 
it progressed. The boy suspected that, in some way, 
Jean’s visit boded ill to his admired friend and he looked 
askance at the puzzling stranger who had accompanied 
Jean home, and who must have something to do with 
the case. 

After supper they gathered on the porch and Jean— 
with Mr. Carew once more to confirm and develop the 
blacker part of the story, Dillon’s baseness toward his 
generous friends—told her father and his stepmother, 
Miss Balfour and Helen, all profoundly interested, and 
Rodney, writhing as he heard, all that she knew of 
Anthony Dillon’s plot to wrong the Wolcotts and the 
firm of Stewart, Reed & Company. 

“ I can’t understand such perfidy ; I can’t understand 
it! ” protested Mr. Wolcott, having heard Jean through 
with dazed amazement. “ Such a charming young man! 
And to offer us less than he knew that we were to be 
offered by his firm, and to try to undermine that firm, 


278 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


using the confidence, the trust they reposed in him 
against themselves! I can’t understand that it is 
true! ” 

“ It isn’t true ! ” burst out Rod. “ I don’t believe 
one word of it! ” His face was crimson from a variety 
of emotions; he looked as though, if he had been a girl, 
he would have burst into tears. 

“ Gently, gently, Rodney! ” warned his father. “ We 
are both profoundly shocked, but not only has Jean 
seen Mr. Dillon’s employers, but the youngest member 
of the firm is here now. You are forgetting in your 
first keen grief and horror over it that there is, unfor¬ 
tunately, no room to doubt Mr. Dillon’s treachery. I 
am sure Mr. Carew and your sister will not be offended 
that it is your first instinct to blame any one rather 
than he who is not here to speak for himself.” 

“ Well, here’s another illustration of an old saying ! ” 
murmured Mrs. Claudia. 

For, as Mr. Wolcott spoke, Anthony Dillon came 
smiling around the flagged walk that ran from the edge 
of the cliff up to the porch where the Wolcotts and their 
guests were seated. He paused as he saw the large 
group gathered there, and his heart leaped with pleasure 
as he recognized among them Mr. Wolcott. His vaca¬ 
tion was to end in a few days ; all his efforts to meet 
Mr. Wolcott, or to see him alone at his stepmother’s 


JEAN’S TRIUMPH 


279 


during the past week had failed. The return of Mr. 
Wolcott to his home was essential to the success of 
Anthony Dillon’s plans, and he was delighted to see 
that Mr. Wolcott had come. 

“ I’m glad you’re back, sir,” he cried, running up the 
steps with his hand outstretched to Mr. Wolcott. 

Mr. Wolcott, gentle and ineffective in all practical 
things, had a standard of honor that made him stern 
toward anything like dishonesty. He put his hand 
behind his back and said: “ One moment, Mr. Dillon.” 
At the same time he slightly indicated Mr. Carew with 
a motion of his right hand. 

Anthony Dillon turned in that direction. His out¬ 
stretched hand fell limp at his side, his jaw fell also. 
“ Mr. Carew ! ” he gasped. 

“ Mr. Carew, Dillon,” said that gentleman quietly. 
“ Come to Tidewater in high time.” 

No one spoke nor moved except Mrs. Claudia Wol¬ 
cott, who leaned forward slightly, enjoying the drama 
and Mr. Dillon’s discomfiture. 

“ So that is why Miss Jean hurried off to Boston ! ” 
said Anthony Dillon slowly. “ Before Steve gave me 
back the bundle of letters that he found, you read 
them! ” 

Jean crimsoned indignantly. “We read the name of 
the firm from which they came, Mr. Dillon. It was on 


280 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


the envelope, plain, for all the world to read. We do 
not act dishonorably, even if we are trying to hunt 
down dishonor. I had been anxious to find some one 
who knew you to be what both Steve and I felt sure you 
were all along. So I went to Boston, saw Stewart, 
Reed & Company, and Mr. Carew is here,” said Jean, 
speaking with a slow dignity, trying to hold down her 
wrath. 

“ There’s nothing to be gained by being impertinent 
to Miss Wolcott, Dillon,” added Mr. Carew, and there 
was a hint of steel in his kindly voice. 

“ I suppose I may as well retire gracefully,” said 
Anthony Dillon, with a mocking bow to Jean. “ I 
imagine the game is up.” 

“ Both here and in Stewart, Reed & Company’s office 
your game is certainly up, Dillon,” said Mr. Carew 
gravely. “ The senior partner would have telegraphed 
you to return for your dismissal this afternoon, but 
that, when I decided to come up here, I telephoned him 
to let me get here before you heard that you were found 
out. I will not say anything about the firm’s disap¬ 
pointment, Anthony. We trusted you and liked you; 
if you had served us as we believed you would, it would 
have been our pleasure to have furthered your fortunes 
materially. We’re sorry enough, be sure. Aside from 
the question of right and wrong, it is utterly stupid to 


JEAN’S TRIUMPH 


281 


turn away from straight and open ways into crooked 
ones; you have made a mess of your life, Anthony, as 
well as wronged those who believed in you and gave 
you their confidence. Pull up and do the straight thing 
in future.” 

Anthony Dillon turned away, pale, not acknowledg¬ 
ing Mr. Carew’s valedictory further than with a bow, 
and, with something of his old easy lightness of man¬ 
ner, he said: “ I wish you all a very good-evening,” 
and walked jauntily away. 

Rod broke from his father’s restraining hand with 
a cry. 

“ I’ve got to go! There’s a mistake ! ” he screamed. 
“ Wait for me, Tony; I’m going with you! ” 

“ Oh, Rod, Rod, come back ! ” cried Jean in distress. 
“Don’t led Rod follow him. He will try to make 
him believe that black is white, and nobody knows 
what harm he may do to a boy like Rod, who pities 
him.” 

“ Give the boy a little time, Miss Jean,” said Mr. 
Carew wisely. “ He has all a boy’s admiration for a 
young man in his affection for Dillon, and Anthony has 
a charm for more than Rod. Rod’s inheritance and 
training will assert itself : don’t fear. This is the first 
keen shock of finding Dillon unworthy and all of us 
against him. That boy is wretchedly unhappy to- 


282 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


night: he’s disappointed and shocked, though he won’t 
admit it, and he has the instinct to defend the under 
dog that you want every boy to have. Rod will drop 
Dillon if you let him alone. No fear of Dillon’s hang¬ 
ing around Tidewater, either.” 

“ It is rather like a story, or a play,” said Miss Bal¬ 
four thoughtfully. “How strong this story-making 
instinct is! One side of my brain is always seeing the 
story in events, while the other responds to the human 
side. It is sad to see that young man going away dis¬ 
graced. I wonder whether he will take Mr. Carew’s 
advice and use his wits to good purposes in future ? I 
hope so.” 

“I doubt it,” said Mrs. Claudia Wolcott crisply. 
“ He has the sort of mind and character that prefers 
tricks. I don’t believe the sort of treachery he showed 
his employers in return for kindness ever is made 
straight—ever wants to be straight. Curious, that a 
man can be so stupid and yet cunning! If Dillon had 
spent half the time inventing new ways to do right that 
he spent inventing tricks, he’d have made his mark in 
the world. That side of roguery always strikes one’s 
common sense—it’s so utterly stupid and wasteful! ” 

“ That’s what I think, Step-grand,” said Steve em¬ 
phatically. “ It’s that way in school. There’s nothing 
in being a crook, playing games, or cheating in class, 


JEAN’S TRIUMPH 


283 


or any old way. Of course no decent chap wants to 
be crooked, but if he did there’s nothing in it.” 

“ I do hope Rod won’t be influenced—I shall be glad 
when mother comes home to Rod,” said Jean anxiously. 

•“¥e won’t talk business, not even morals, any longer 
to-night,” said Miss Balfour rising. “ Jean is tired and 
hasn’t seen her father in several days. But Mr. Carew 
and I have often discussed the nicest scheme! We 
shall ask to talk it over with you before long.” 

“With pleasure,” said Mr. Wolcott. Jean was 
watching Mr. Carew and she saw the supreme satisfac¬ 
tion in his face when he heard the “ we ” by which Miss 
Balfour associated him with herself. 

“ Now there’s a story—a love story, too!—that I 
don’t believe Miss Balfour thinks of for a magazine! ” 
thought Jean, watching her new friends as they walked 
along the cliff in an atmosphere of bliss apparent even 
to Jean and Helen’s inexperience. 


CHAPTER XYIII 


JEAN FACES SORROW 


HE following morning Jean lingered in the dining- 



JL room, waiting for Rodney. The others had break¬ 
fasted and dispersed. Mrs. Claudia Wolcott had gone 
home and so had Helen. Mr. Carew had departed in 
search of Miss Balfour, who had promised to show him 
some of the beauties of that part of the Massachusetts 
coast. Rodney did not come down-stairs ; Jean knew 
that it was because he wished to avoid his family's 
kindness, as well as the duty of being polite to their 
guests. But she lingered, hoping to make him happier 
while ministering to his comfort. If Rod were to brood 
over Jean’s victory and drift into permanent resent¬ 
ment, the sale of the house would have been the lesser 
misfortune. Wounded vanity is harder to heal than 
wounded love: Rod had been hurt in both ways, for he 
had grown admiringly fond of Anthony Dillon. He 
was at that critical age when a boy feels at once im¬ 
portant and touchy at other people’s lack of deference 
toward him. Jean knew that Rod had always been 
the one of her mother’s children that caused her most 


284 


JEAN FACES SORROW 


285 


uneasiness: he was inclined to separate himself from 
the others and his character lacked that stability which 
was the sure inheritance of all the Wolcotts. Even 
Dorcas, though she was indeed the “ witch-child ” that 
they called her, had a certain uprightness in her make¬ 
up that would be perfectly reliable in all great mat¬ 
ters. 

Jean anxiously tried to think of ways to prove to 
Rodney that she was his loving, devoted sister and to 
break up his bitterness toward her. At last Rod came 
slowly down to his late breakfast, sullen, gloomy, with 
black looks for Jean. 

“ I heard you stirring, Rod, and I made you fresh 
coffee. We had chops, but they are hard: I have 
poached you two eggs on toast, in case you can’t eat 
the chops,” she said. 

“ Don’t fuss,” said Rod ungraciously. “ I don’t want 
anything that I can’t get for myself. You needn’t try 
to act so nice to me ; you said you’d do all you could 
to head off that sale and I know you’re chuckling over 
your victory. It’s worse to pretend to be sorry.” 

“ How can you be so unfair, Rod ? When did you 
ever know me to pretend anything ? ” cried Jean, in¬ 
dignant in spite of her resolutions. Then she recalled 
her duty. “ I’m just as sorry as I can be for your dis¬ 
appointment in Mr. Dillon ; it’s hard. Of course I was 


286 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


sorry all along that you didn’t see him as he was, be¬ 
cause I felt sure about him, and I didn’t want you dis¬ 
appointed—though I’d rather you were than for you not 
to know him as he is. I’d do anything to help you 
out, Rod dear. Please don’t be so unfair to me. I’m 
not to blame for Mr. Dillon’s treachery. Can’t you be 
glad, Rod, even though it is hard on you, that we found 
him out in time to save us all from trusting him too 
far?” 

“ Oh, cut it out! ” said Rod. “ What’s the use of 
talking ? Tony’s gone, anyhow. He’s lucky to be out 
of this one horse little village.” 

Jean went away without another word. She saw 
that Rodney was smarting, furious that his wisdom 
had been proved vain, as well as his friendship empty of 
its object, and that there was nothing to be done until 
he should have recovered sufficiently to see things in 
their true light. It was hard to be patient; Rod ought 
to be disgusted with Dillon’s dishonesty and swing 
back to the upright girl that loved him. Above all the 
gibe at Tidewater frightened Jean. That was the side 
of Rod that always frightened her and that she longed 
to wipe out. Jean went out on the porch and looked 
out to sea with clouded, inward gazing eyes. Her 
mother, oh, her mother! Would she never come 
home! Rod needed her sweetness, her wisdom, her 


JEAN FACES SORROW 


287 


patience, her motherhood and at his age delays were 
dangerous when traits of character needed amending. 

Miss Balfour and Mr. Carew came along the cliff. 

“We did not explore the coast far,” said Mr. Carew. 
“ I’m going to take the next train to Boston and I 
shall return in a few days. I want to talk over with 
Mr. Stewart his plan for a summer colony here ; if he 
is willing to merge it into another that I—that Miss 
Balfour and I like a good deal, then I shall have to 
return to talk about it to your father, without whom 
it is impossible. So I am going to take leave of my 
kind little hostess and thank her for all that she has 
done for me—and been the means of my obtaining.” 

Mr. Carew glanced at Miss Balfour with such signifi¬ 
cance that Jean allowed herself to return the glance 
with a smile that accepted its meaning. 

“ I’m glad,” she said. 

“ How does Mr. Carew go to the station ? ” interposed 
Miss Balfour. 

“ By Old King Cole and the carryall, under the pro¬ 
tection of Miss Balfour and Jean, the Wolcotts’ French 
coachman,” laughed Jean. “ And I suppose I ought to 
tell you that there isn’t much time to lose, although it 
sounds inhospitable.” 

“ It is part of true hospitality to speed the parting 
guest. I’ll run up to my room and be down again in 


288 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


a few moments; I’ll pack my bag the way they make 
dumplings—drop things in the middle and squeeze it 
together ! ” cried Mr. Carew darting off boyishly. 

Jean got her guest to the station just in time to 
make the train ; he bade both girls a hasty good-bye 
and fled across the station platform to leap aboard. 
Mr. Wolcott appeared as the train pulled out, looking 
surprised and a little hurt that it had gone before he 
had shaken Mr. Carew’s hand. He took the vacant 
seat in the carryall and Jean drove him home. He 
seemed to her more than ever removed from the life 
around him. The discovery that Anthony Dillon was 
everything that he disapproved had sent him adrift for 
a time. It was always difficult to get Mr. Wolcott to 
grasp facts, so when he had accepted anything for a fact 
and it proved to be so painfully untrue as Anthony 
Dillon’s worth had proved, it left the dear man in a 
maze of confusion. 

The day was sultry, growing more so. There was a 
deadly stillness in the air, a sullen menace of nature. 
Hot a twig stirred. King Cole’s slowness was justified 
as he droopingly poked along homeward. 

Miss Balfour stayed to lunch with Jean on her first 
asking and after it was over Miss Balfour coaxed Jean 
down on the beach. Jean went with her gladly; they 
both were restless in the nerve-irritating condition of 


JEAN FACES SORROW 


289 


the atmosphere. The elder and younger girl went 
down the beach steps which were the shortest cut to 
the sands in front of the Wolcott house and went a lit¬ 
tle distance up the beach where Miss Balfour curled 
down under the half shadow of a long-stranded dory 
and Jean dropped beside her in the sand. There was a 
promise of confidence in Miss Balfour’s manner and 
Jean felt sure that she knew the matter of it in ad¬ 
vance. Not a breath stirred. The ocean lay motion¬ 
less under a fierce sun that seemed veiled, in spite of its 
merciless heat and the glare of the sky, which looked 
molten, cloudless, yet not clear. In the west great 
white cloud heads curled in thick masses, with blue 
darkness in their bases, near the horizon. 

“ Isn’t it awful ? ” sighed Miss Balfour. “ This fore¬ 
boding, heavy air makes me ill.” 

“ Do you feel it, too ? ” cried Jean. “ I always have 
a headache when showers are coming, and I feel as 
nervously restless as a cat.” 

“We must watch the sky : there’ll be a shower and 
I have fifteen minutes’ walk to shelter,” said Miss Bal¬ 
four. 

“ Fifteen minutes to your hotel, but not more than 
five minutes to shelter,” corrected Jean. “ I wish you 
would stay with me—unless you would rather not ?—if 
the shower does come.” 


290 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Oh, it may pass us by,” said Miss Balfour. “ The 
sky is not like any that I have seen before. Of course 
I should like to be with you instead of at the hotel, 
alone. There is something to tell you, little new-friend. 
I think I ought to tell you first of any one, because you 
were the dea ex machina of it—at the last, at any 
rate.” 

“ I could not help guessing after that hint, though I 
knew before,” cried Jean. “ He is so nice that I don’t 
wonder.” 

“ And you knew! I don’t wonder either, Jean ; he 
is nicer than you know ! ” cried Miss Balfour. “ We 
have been friends for six years, but I was foolish enough 
to resist anything beyond friendship. I thought that 
my work, my career, was more to me than love! But 
I was young; that is my excuse.” 

“ Don’t you still think that your work is more- 

No, I suppose not more than love. The great poets all 
say that love, real love, is first of all things. But when 
a person has a great talent, like yours, oughtn’t they 
sacrifice everything to it ? I beg your pardon; of 
course you don’t think so, if you have promised to 
marry Mr. Carew,” said Jean, frightened by her own 
temerity. 

“ Certainly I do not think so,” said Miss Balfour de¬ 
cidedly. “ Don’t you let that idea spoil your life, Jean, 


JEAN FACES SORROW 


201 


as it might have spoiled mine, if Alan Carew had not 
been a persistent lover ! Why, my dear child, we suc¬ 
cessful, but small fry, have not a great enough message 
for the world to warrant our failure to play our part in 
it! I have some talent, yes! So have you, as I be¬ 
lieve. I have succeeded to a desirable degree and prob¬ 
ably you could succeed if you chose, but do you suppose 
this small measure of success will satisfy the starved 
woman in us, the woman that we shall both be one day, 
I sooner than you, but both of us too soon ? The 
woman whose youth has gone with nothing to show for 
it but printed pages and a teacup notoriety ? ” 

“ It always seemed to me beautiful to live for art,” 
said Jean timidly. 

“ Dear me! That is a very youthful speech—pardon 
me, dear! ” laughed Miss Balfour. “ Tell me, haven’t 
you been happier, on the whole and in spite of the 
weariness and worries, during these weeks that you 
have taken charge of your family than ever before ? ” 

Jean considered. “I really believe that I have 
been,” she said slowly. “ It is nice to be of some use.” 

“ All women, all true women, delight in serving those 
whom they love,” said Miss Balfour. “There are a 
few women who are not home-makers by nature, but, 
thank goodness, only a few and not your sort. I have 
known a few sweet, true, womenly women who seem 


292 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


to keep a perpetual girlhood, who go through life en¬ 
grossed in their work, free of heart, yet kindly and 
often mothering lots of things and people; more than 
they would have mothered if they had cared to marry, 
as they never did seem to think of doing. But that is 
a rare type. They have their own place and beauti¬ 
fully fulfil their vocation. You are a lady, Jean—for 
your comfort! A ‘giver of bread,’ you know what 
that means! Roger Cathcart is a dear boy, Jean! 
You are on the verge of seventeen. I am not advising 
settling great questions yet, but—Roger is a dear boy! 
When the time comes, don’t be blind to the fact.” 

“ Yes, I know he is,” said Jean, blushing furiously, 
but not dodging the challenge. “ But Roger is—just 
Roger! I dream of doing such beautiful, big things, 
and Roger hates my sort of big things.” 

“ No, he doesn’t! ” cried Miss Balfour, and Jean was 
surprised to discover that she knew so much about 
Roger. “ He is exceedingly proud of your talent, only 
he feared it would spoil the more important side of 
you. When you had grown all around, if he had a 
right to interfere with you, Roger Cathcart would 
never try to prevent your making a name for yourself. 
Jean, how dark it is getting! The shower is coming! ” 
Miss Balfour broke off her exordium in a sudden per¬ 
ception that darkness of a strange, greenish sort was 


JEAN FACES SORROW 


293 


dropping upon them. As she spoke the menacing 
yellow-green sky was riven with an immense bolt of 
lightning. 

“ It has come ! ” Jean cried, springing to her feet, as 
a gust of wind whirled down the beach, eddying the 
sand around them and lifting the foam on the crest of 
the great waves into which the ocean had aroused to 
threatening action. “ We must run for the house this 
instant! ” 

“ Why, there’s a boat, coming out from the point! 
Look, it’s half-way out to the light,” exclaimed Miss 
Balfour hastily gaining her feet to follow Jean. 

“A boat with such a shower coming! I thought 
there was no one in Tidewater as foolish as that! ” 
cried Jean. Then her face blanched; she clutched 
Hester Balfour’s arm. “It’s Dorcas, our little Dor¬ 
cas,” she whispered hoarsely. “ She has taken a boat 
at the point and gone out! Thunder-storms always 
make her wild ! Oh, tell me what to do! Tell me! 
She will be lost. Oh, mother, mother! How shall I 
ever meet my mother ! ” 

“Jean, dear, poor little Jean!” Miss Balfour heard 
herself saying, as if it were a voice far away. “ Where 
is the nearest man to go after her ? ” 

“ Down in the town, among the wharves we might 
find an old sailor willing to risk it. But before we 


294 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


got there- Oh, look, look ! ” Jean hid her eyes, 

not daring to look, as she cried out. 

From a sky that had rapidly grown black from hori¬ 
zon to horizon, yet had retained its ghastly yellow- 
greenish color, there came flashes of lightning so lurid 
that the whole earth and sea seemed but the mouth of 
an infinite pit. The ocean rose to madness under the 
furious wind, and the roar of great waves mingled with 
the crash of thunder directly overhead. The girls 
could no longer see Dorcas in her little boat; they 
dared not think whether or not she still was there. 

As Hester Balfour strained her eyes over the waters, 
lighted by the constant flashes, and Jean clung to her 
with hidden face, trembling and moaning her wordless 
prayer, there glided out from shore another rowboat, 
rising and falling like a dead leaf on the towering 
waves. It was rowed, as far as rowing was possible, 
by one man. A flash of lightning that played around 
him lit up his white shirt and revealed the face above 
it. 

“ Jean, Jean, oh, Jean, Roger has gone after her!” 
cried Miss Balfour through the wind. 

“Roger! Oh, no, he hasn’t! Not Roger! He 
hasn’t gone, too! Oh, Roger, Roger! ” wailed Jean, 
seeing as she cried out that it was indeed Roger. 

Miss Balfour put her arms around Jean without a 


JEAN FACES SORROW 


295 


word, but Jean slipped through them to her knees 
upon the sand. She clasped her hands and knelt there 
in the driving rain, her face set and deathly white in 
the illumined darkness, her eyes straining out to sea to 
follow the two boats freighted with love. 

A figure came down the beach with hurrying step, 
forgetful of the tempest, possessed with but one 
thought, a thought that drove Roger’s mother to Jean, 
for whose little sister her boy was risking his life, 
drove her to Jean whom that boy loved. She almost 
stumbled over the two girls, Jean kneeling, Hester be¬ 
side her, holding her. 

“ Oh, Jeannie, then you know! ” cried Mrs. Cath- 
cart. 

Jean sprang to her feet and cried out wildly: “ He 
has gone to save Dorcas, Mrs. Cathcart. God won’t let 
him be lost. I thought for a moment that he would 
never come back to us, but now I know he will. Dear 
Roger’s mother, don’t be afraid ! ” 

The girl’s eyes were dilated, her breath came short, 
her face took on a look of exultation. As the light¬ 
ning threw it into white relief against the storm Hester 
Balfour felt her courage leap up; it was as if Jean 
were inspired to prophesy, as if she were a creature of 
another world, half a spirit. 

Roger’s mother put her arms around Jean and drew 


296 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


her close, half leaning upon her, half sustaining her. 
Jean’s cold hands tenderly smoothed the older woman’s 
wet hair from her forehead. Clinging to each other, 
Roger’s mother and Jean strained their eyes to sea for 
a glimpse of the boat that bore the brave boy they 
both loved, and for the other boat that had held little 
madcap Dorcas, such a feeble creature to contest the 
power of the storm. 

The storm began to slacken, the sky showed faint 
lights, but the wind was unabated and the waves rolled 
to shore, towering, crested and angry. Roger’s mother 
and Jean waited to know their fate. 

The sun came out over a sea white with iridescent 
foam that flashed its brightness up into the whirling 
wind. It shone over a refreshed earth, redolent of 
faint, moist odors, and over birds singing their ecstasy 
that the storm had passed, while, like the sustaining 
drums and viols and ’cellos of an orchestra, the distant 
thunder upheld the bird chorus as the shower went 
down the southeastern sky. 

Tidewater had seen Dorcas starting out alone in the 
face of the coming peril, though no one had seen her 
in time to stop her going, nor until she had passed well 
out of reach of land. It had also seen Roger go out to 
try to save her. As soon as the storm was over 
small boats started out under reefed sails to search for 



No One Came Near the Three Women 


































































































































. 

























- 
















- 








*■ 


- 









* ^ 



























JEAN FACES SORROW 


297 


the child and her rescuer, and the people gathered in 
knots upon the beach to watch for the return of those 
who had launched out after the two in peril. From 
one to another they whispered that there was slender 
chance of Roger’s returning with Dorcas—if he re¬ 
turned at all. 

No one came near the three women straining their 
eyes out to sea a short distance above the Wolcott cliff. 
Mrs. Cathcart and Jean, Hester Balfour beside them, 
had not moved. They were not conscious of the sun¬ 
shine, nor that their neighbors had gathered to pity or 
congratulate them, as it might be. They knew only 
that the ocean was now studded with cat boats and 
small sloops and schooners, put out for rescue, but their 
tense minds were set beyond the boats on that vast ex¬ 
panse of water at which so many coast women have 
learned to look with the horror of an undying memory. 
Hester Balfour stood close to them, feeling miles away 
and aloof in her exclusion from their rending agony, 
and in the helplessness of her aching pity. This, then, 
was the way that sorrow fell in the midst of bright 
plans and youthful security! This, then, was life 
which such as she dared to try to portray! How 
dared she write stories, since words were so inadequate 
to tell a story like this ! 

Mr. Wolcott, immersed in his aerial rudders, up in 


298 


HEE DAUGHTER JEAN 


the tower room, was one of the few people in Tide¬ 
water ignorant in that hour of his child’s danger. Rod 
and Steve had gone out in their little boat, the Nixie , 
among the other boats. Jean had a brief glimpse of 
Rodney’s wild eyes and Steve’s desperate ones as the 
boys passed her to launch their dory and row out to the 
Nixie's moorings. She had wondered at herself for 
dully thinking that, at least, the death of Dorcas would 
sober Rodney and melt him into one with his stricken 
family. 


CHAPTER XIX 
jean’s reward 


HE lighthouse boat had started out from the little 



A cove that had been sea-made between the rocks 
of the reef. It had tacked up against the northwest 
wind slowly; the Tidewater boats, running down on 
long tacks, almost free of the wind, met it far out 
toward the light. The little Nixie , one of the fastest 
of the small crafts, and risking more sail than her bet¬ 
ters carried in the still heavy wind, outstripped most 
of the other boats and soon overhauled the lighthouse 
craft. Those on shore could not hear Rod and Steve’s 
shout, but it was caught up by those nearest to them and 
echoed faintly to the shore. Jean’s long-visioned eyes, 
accustomed to great seaward distances, saw the boys’ 
black figures against the Nixie's sail as they stood on 
her small deck with uplifted arms. Then she saw the 
Nixie's sail, with the one reef under which the boys 
had ventured out rashly shaken out, peak up proudly 
against the mast, the peak lowered, raised again, low¬ 
ered and raised three times. 

Jean sprang to her feet with a low cry of joy. “ They 
have found them! ” she cried. 


299 


300 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Jean ! But maybe not, not both of them ! I don’t 
dare be glad! ” gasped Mrs. Cathcart. 

“ Our boys are signaling to me that Dorcas is there 
—and I know Eoger is safe!” said Jean. “Helen, 
when did you come ? They have found them ! ” 

“ I have been here some time, Jean, dearest,” said 
Helen tremulously. “Yes, the boys are signaling. I 
believe they mean that Dorcas has been picked up by 
the lighthouse tender.” 

“ Dorcas and Roger,” insisted Jean. “ The joy of 
life has new keenness because of the sorrow that missed 
us.” 

Hester Balfour looked at Jean as the girl caught 
Roger’s mother to her in an impassioned embrace. 
“ There is no more fear that Jean will not love Roger 
perfectly; when she is old enough to marry, she will 
marry him,” thought the older girl. “ If only she is 
right and it is not the child alone who is saved! How 
instinctively the girl expresses her joy in psalmody! 
Whatever befalls her, sweet, strong-hearted Jean is to 
be a poet.” 

It was hard to wait for the boats to beat up near 
enough to shore for the anxious hearts hanging on them 
to learn what news they brought. The head wind was 
cruel. But, as if it relented, the wind veered as the 
shower split, down toward the south, and part of it 


JEAN’S REWARD 


301 


passed northward again. With the change an easterly 
breeze sprang up, mercifully speeding the homing boats 
straight toward Tidewater, free of the wind. The 
lighthouse boat was ugly, painted blue above her water 
line, her yellow keel showing only when she leaned far 
over, but she had speed in her awkward lines and she 
and the Nixie came up together, in advance of their 
comrade craft. 

First of all the watchers Jean’s gray eyes made out 
that for which they were straining. Roger stood far 
up in the bow of the boat, his arm encircling her mast 
as she dipped and rose through the breakers. Square¬ 
shouldered and strong of outline, with his massive head 
in relief against the Beacon's sail, he stood, showing 
himself to the eyes that he knew hungered for the 
sight. How splendid he was! How could any of 
them have imagined that the sea had devoured his 
young manhood ? Jean dwelt on the lithe figure of 
her old schoolmate with hungry eyes, triumphing in her 
certainty that he would come back, but unspeakably 
grateful that now it was certainty that he had come 
back. 

“ See, Mother Cathcart! ” cried Jean. Hester Bal¬ 
four and Helen looked at each other through tears. To 
the older girl, keeping the love of Alan Carew in her 
heart, and to the younger one to whom love had not 


302 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


come, the note in Jean’s voice was thrilling with pro¬ 
found meanings. 

A moment later the waiters on the beach saw Dorcas 
held up in the arms of the lighthouse keeper’s assistant. 
And then they heard, borne in upon the east wind 
blowing toward them, a hymn sung by the men in all 
the boats as they came home. They were the descend¬ 
ants of the Puritans and they sang, in their triumphal 
procession behind the rescuers, the grandly solemn Old 
Hundredth: 

“ Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” 

The watchers on the beach took up the hymn and it 
rolled out again to sea : 

“ Praise Him all creatures here below, 

Praise Him above, ye heavenly host, 

Praise Father, Son and Holy Ghost.” 

Thus after the storm, with thanksgiving, they 
brought Roger and Dorcas back to those that loved 
them. 

The Beacon came up and made the Nixie's moorings 
in order to let Roger come ashore in the Wolcott boys’ 
dory at that part of the beach where Roger’s mother 
and Dorcas’ sister were waiting for them. 


JEAN’S REWARD 


303 


Rod called from the Nixie to Roger to take their 
skiff, that he and Steve would wait till some one could 
bring it out again for them to land. Accordingly 
Roger let Dorcas down into it, jumped in after her 
himself and pulled with long, hard strokes for the shore 
and the waiting woman and girl. 

It was his mother first, not Jean, whom Roger saw ; 
he must be credited with that. While he held his 
mother fast and soothed her, as she clung to him, and 
while repentant, quivering Dorcas hid her tear-stained 
and swollen face in Jean’s shoulder, Roger’s eyes sought 
Jean. And Hester Balfour, seeing the look with which 
Jean’s eyes answered his, knew that one day her hope 
for Jean would be fulfilled. 

“ You ought to have known I’d come back to Tide¬ 
water ; always liked the place,” said Roger, trying, after 
the fashion of a true American boy, to cover profound 
emotion with a light word. But it was not successful 
trifling; his voice trembled, and Jean could not answer 
as Roger took both her hands and held them close, 
quite unconscious that he did so. 

They all turned and moved slowly toward the steps 
that led up to the cliff, Dorcas holding fast to Jean’s 
hand, Jean and Mrs. Cathcart each clasping one of 
Roger’s arms. 

“ Dorcas upset,” Roger was saying. “ I picked her 


304 


HEE DAUGHTEE JEAN 


up as she clung to the overturned boat. But in getting 
her into my boat I lost my oars : the waves were run¬ 
ning high and they were swept off as the boat tipped to 
one side when I hauled Dorcas into her. We drifted 
out toward the light. The lighthouse keeper saw us by 
the flashes of lightning and put out after us. I suppose I 
did save Dorcas, but that plucky fellow may have saved 
us both. No one can say what would have happened if 
he hadn’t come after us ; the chance of being swept off 
by those big waves was a little greater than I care to 
think about. However, it’s all over now, motherkins 
and my little chum. And I believe I’ve pulled some¬ 
thing worth having out of that storm ! I believe Jean 
is glad I didn’t move into Mermaidville from Tide¬ 
water ! ” 

Jean could not answer. Her joy was unutterable, 
but it still scarcely bridged the space between it and a 
sorrow as great. 

Mrs. Claudia Wolcott drove over that evening. She 
found the family gathered together within doors, as 
close as they could gather. Mr. Wolcott, aroused out of 
his dreams by the story of his narrow escape from the 
loss of his little girl, held Dorcas on his knee, while 
Steve fed her with chocolate creams, in which he had 
invested the money that he had saved for new rowlocks. 
Dorcas was a witch-child and a trial, but Steve felt that 


JEAN’S REWARD 


305 


life would have been hard to face if she had been lying 
that night out yonder beneath the waves. 

Rodney’s chair was close to his father’s: he sat with 
his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands, silent, 
pale, tremulous about the lips. Rodney looked ex¬ 
hausted. The hard experience of finding his golden 
friendship dross and the tragedy which had been so 
nearly enacted that afternoon had added years, for the 
time at least, to the handsome face of the careless boy 
of fifteen. 

Jean looked suddenly grown up also, but far from 
sadly so. She was radiant of eyes, pale, but smiling ; 
she looked as though a light had been kindled within 
her. She met her step-grandmother with a quiet kiss 
to which, for once, that eccentric lady did not object. 

“ I came over,” observed Mrs. Claudia, “ because 
there is a moon and I don’t mind driving at night when 
there is one, and because I wanted to see you all, to 
make sure I actually could still see you all! There 
isn’t any use in saying anything about such an after¬ 
noon as you spent, Jean, but I felt as though I’d sleep 
better for seeing you. Dorcas, I suppose there is still 
less use in asking you what did possess you ? ” 

Dorcas shook her head. “ I don’t know,” she said. 
“I wanted to get right out into the middle of the 
wind and the lightning and all the storm. There isn’t 


306 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


a bit of wildness in me now, Step-grand; I’m all over 
being mischievous.” 

“ While you’re so frightened and tired! ” commented 
Mrs. Claudia. “You won’t change your spots, you 
most spotted of little leopard cubs! But I do certainly 
think you might spare your family such agony as this 
prank has cost.” 

“ I shall,” said Dorcas, and Jean, for one, believed 
her. 

“ When is your birthday, Jean ? I never am certain 
of even family dates. The fourteenth of September ? ” 
inquired Mrs. Claudia, with what seemed like an irrele¬ 
vant mental leap. 

“ Yes, Step-grand: I shall be eighteen years old in 
less than three weeks! ” said Jean. 

“ It won’t matter what name you give your years 
for ten years to come,” remarked Mrs. Wolcott. “At 
your age and mine, Jean, we can afford, for different 
reasons, to laugh at time. I thought that you would 
have a desirable present on your birthday, but it came 
ahead of time. I brought it here to-night; it’s out in 
the carriage, in fact. Shall I bring it in ? ” 

“ How queer you look, Step-grand! ” cried sharp-eyed 
Dorcas. 

“ Excited by the splendor of Jean’s gift,” declared 
Mrs. Claudia with, actually, a nervous laugh. If the 


JEAN’S REWARD 


307 


elder Mrs. Wolcott developed nerves then no one’s 
balance could be depended upon. 

“ Shall I help you bring it in, Step-grand ? ” asked 
Rod, arousing himself to his duty. 

“ No, thanks; I can easily get it in. I’ll fetch it,” 
said Mrs. Claudia, fairly rushing from the room. 

She was not gone long; they heard her returning 
slowly, and—some one was following her! 

Mrs. Claudia came into the room, her hands empty 
as when she had left it, but she halted in the doorway. 

“ Jean will have to share her birthday gift with you 
all,” she said, and stepped aside. 

For the space of an intaken breath there was silence, 
then the room rang with the cry of all the Wolcotts 
together: “Mother, mother, mother!” and Mrs. Wol¬ 
cott’s children rushed tumultuously to where their 
mother stood in the doorway ! Their mother, tears of 
joy in her eyes, a soft flush on her cheeks, smiling, 
well! 

“Mary!” said Mr. Wolcott, softly, sitting still and 
staring with dim eyes at the apparition. The new joy 
had benumbed him; it was too much, following after 
the emotion with which he had learned of the sorrow 
that day escaped. 

Jean, Rod and Steve clung around their mother, 
Dorcas knelt clasping her knees and incoherently sob- 


308 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


bing out something, as she wildly kissed the small 
black bag her mother carried. The poor child could 
not force her way into the tangle of her elders and 
greaters. 

Mrs. Wolcott helped her, stooping and drawing 
Dorcas up to her, where she snuggled her head into 
her mother’s neck and held her tight, once more “ the 
Wolcott baby ” and not the madcap Dorcas. 

44 Oh, mother, mother ! And we had no idea ! ” 
sighed Jean, falling back to look at the dear face. It 
was altered, refreshed, the tired look was gone, the 
peacefully smiling eyes were clear, with the look of 
health in them, no longer shadowed by weary blue- 
veined lids. 

44 1 did not intend you to have an idea, Jean daugh¬ 
ter,” said Mrs. Wolcott. She brushed aside her chil¬ 
dren and went to meet her husband as he arose to take 
his share of the rejoicing. 44 Bentley, dear Bentley,” 
she said. 44 It is good, good to be at home ! ” 

44 Mary, dear, Jean has been all that a child could 
be—but no child can be Mary! ” returned Mr. Wolcott 
folding his wife in his arms with a grave tenderness 
that revealed the profoundest joy. 44 1 have missed 
you. I didn’t know how much till I saw you standing 
there.” 

44 Are you well, mother ? Honest ? ” asked Steve. 


JEAN’S REWARD 


309 


“Quite well, sonny-boy. I am pronounced fit for 
active service,” laughed Mrs. Wolcott. Her eyes 
sought Jean’s. “ Daughter mine, you have saved 
your mother! ” 

“She’s worth saving! I mean to keep right on 
saving her,” whispered Jean. They were all impeding 
Mrs. Wolcott’s progress to the couch, hanging on her, 
adoring her, but she reached it at last and sat in the 
middle, with her family almost festooned around her— 
there was no other place possible for her to sit except 
on that old couch which would hold them all. 

Jean slipped to the floor and put her arms on her 
mother’s knees, the better to see the dear face she 
had hungered for. Mrs. Wolcott was beautiful, not so 
much with the beauty of her regular, delicate features, 
but with the beauty of purity, holiness, devotion, of 
wisdom and experience of the deepest things in life, 
which crowned her broad low brow and shone with a 
steady illumination from her gray eyes, eyes like Jean’s, 
but older eyes. 

“ Mother, you are so dear I can’t bear it! ” cried 
Jean, dropping her face on the hand she had captured. 
She did not define her meaning, but Jean felt the true 
motherhood looking out from her mother’s face, felt 
it sacred, like the divine revelation of a madonna 
enshrined. 


310 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“ Tell how you came to-night,” said Dorcas. 

“ I wrote mother, asking her to meet me and keep 
the secret from the old house folk,” said Mrs. Wolcott 
gleefully. “ I had expected to be set free in time to 
get here on Jean’s birthday, but I was dismissed sooner, 
for good conduct! I have been a satisfactory patient 
at Mount Horsford; they like people who get well and 
they reward them by sending them away. Oh, how 
shall I make you understand how glad I am to be at 
home! ” 

“ Well, I guess ! ” said Rod. “We could give you a 
point or two on being glad, our own selves.” 

Then they all fell to talking at once, and after a while 
Mrs. Wolcott, the elder, withdrew. “I don’t see that 
I’m needed in the chorus,” she said. “ I’m going home 
to wait till the blackbirds come next spring; then I’ll 
hear chatter just like this, but I can understand their 
talk ! ” 

It was after ten when the Wolcotts went up-stairs, 
but not then to sleep. Mrs. Wolcott put Dorcas to bed. 
“ You’re to be my baby again to-night, Dorcas chicken,” 
she declared. 

No one had told her of the horrible danger of that 
afternoon, but Dorcas could not sleep till she had con¬ 
fessed. 

“ It was awful in me, mamma,” she ended. “ But 


JEAN’S REWARD 


311 


you know I get such streaks. I guess it nearly 
killed Jean. I kind of think I’ll not be so crazy any 
more.” 

Mrs. Wolcott held the little girl fast, thanking heaven 
for the warmth of her clinging arms. Suppose she had 
come back that night to a stricken household with no 
little Dorcas in it! The mother was quite white and 
speechless as she kissed the child and tucked her into 
her bed. 

As she left the room Rodney waylaid her. “ Come 
in here a minute, mother,” he said, and Mrs. Wolcott 
went into Rod’s room, wondering what his ashamed 
face meant. 

“ Jean tell you about Dillon and selling this house ?” 
Rod asked. 

“ Selling this- Oh, Rodney, no! ” Mrs. Wolcott 

sat down precipitately on the edge of the bed, beginning 
to wonder if the happiness they had shared down-stairs 
was founded on dangers escaped, or threatened by 
trouble to come. “ Who is Dillon ? ” 

Rod set down a mark to Jean’s credit in his mind, 
discovering that she had not betrayed him to his mother. 
Then he told her the story, told it briefly, in boyish 
terms, but Mrs. Wolcott heard what he did not say and 
understood. 

“ I’ve been a chump, and I’ve been mean enough to 


312 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


Jean, but- Well, I liked Tony Dillon pretty well 

and I thought he was all right.” 

“ What a splendid little woman Jean has proved her¬ 
self!” cried Mrs. Wolcott involuntarily. “ Rod, dear, 
Jean was right; you must learn to distrust charm that 
is not founded on character. I want my elder son to 
be sensitive to a lack of honor and to shun the ac¬ 
quaintances whose standards are not high. Later you 
must rub shoulders with all sorts of men, but until you 
are strong enough to lead others, take care who leads 
you, Rodney dear.” 

“ He was a winner,” said Rod. And his mother 
knew that in this way he paid a sad tribute to a dead 
love and confidence. 

“ It is part of your education, Rod dear. I’m sorry; 
it’s hard to be disappointed. But try to make up to 
your loyal, fine sister for the anxiety you gave her, and 
the hurt your unkindness to her must have inflicted,” 
said Mrs. Wolcott, patting Rod’s hand so lovingly that 
her words did not sound like the blame they really 
conveyed. “ I can think only of how thankful I am 
that the dear old house is to be the Wolcott house still. 
What narrow escapes from a saddened home-coming I 
have had! ” 

“ Mother, I’m awfully sorry I’m the kind of chap I 
am ! ” said Rod, laying his head on that knee which had 


JEAN’S REWARD 


313 


held him in his babyhood. He was not ashamed of the 
tears he would never have let Jean see. “ I wish I was 
the steady sort Steve is.” 

“ I need my Rodney and I need my Stephen; I don’t 
want you alike, dear boy,” said his mother. “ But I 
want you to be the best kind of a Rodney, and I think 
you will because I want it! ” 

“ As sure as guns I wouldn’t want to make you sorry 
about me, mother,” said Rod. “ I guess the kind of 
man you want me to be is about the best kind I could 
be. Draw the design and cut me out by it, will you, 
mother ? ” 

“ Indeed I will, dear son of my heart! And together 
we’ll make you a son after my own heart! No boy 
can go far wrong who loves his mother truly,” said Mrs. 
Wolcott, kissing the handsome, flushed face before her. 

“ Well, I’d like to know who wouldn’t love such a 
mother as you are ! ” cried Rod. “ I’m going to stick 
to you like beeswax, tell you all I’m about and get your 
idea of it. You’re about the—the motherest mother a 
chap ever had! Jean’s all right, but by jiminy, I’m 
glad you’re back ! ” 

“ So am I, Rod, oh, so am I! ” his mother echoed 
him. “ I have felt dismembered all this time. It is like 
being numb and feeling your heart pulling from far, 
far off, left behind you and drawing you to take it back 


314 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


into your body, to be a mother far off from her chil¬ 
dren.’’ 

Mrs. Wolcott closed Rod’s door behind her and softly 
opened Jean’s. The white figure of the girl, clad for 
the night in its floating gown, lay on the cushions in 
the deep window-seat, as Jean gazed out to sea, think¬ 
ing long thoughts. She was blissfully happy, deeply 
grateful for the mercies of that day, yet half deliciously 
afraid. For the future had lifted its veil to Jean that 
day and she saw, coming toward her, the solemn joy of 
womanhood. 

She heard her mother’s gentle touch on the knob of 
the door and instantly uncoiled herself and leaped to 
meet her. 

“ I knew you’d come, dearest! ” said Jean, with a 
thrill in her voice that moved her mother to a vague 
wonder and fear. “ You always have come to me last 
of all. I was waiting for you. I’ve been waiting for 
you all summer, at first so frightened ! Then afraid to 
be a little less frightened, because you might not be 
better, in spite of seeming so! And, lately, so thankful 
to know you were coming, but so hungry for you ! Oh, 
mother, do you think there could be anything in all the 
world could make me happy if I did not have you ? ” 

“ Yes, Jean, my treasure, yes ! But nothing in all the 
world would quite fill my place. And sometimes, when 


JEAN’S REWARD 


315 


you were happiest, you would be stabbed with pain that 
I was not here to know about it. I loved my mother, 
too, and I want her still. . Often I want her to show my 
children to her, and especially my dear, dear daughter 
Jean, who has her name ! ” replied Jean’s mother. 

For a moment the mother and daughter clung to 
each other, profoundly moved, loving each other, thank¬ 
ful, happy, tasting the past loneliness of separation, 
clinging to the proof that they were together. 

“ Come over to my window, mother mine,” said Jean, 
gently pulling her mother toward the cushions in the 
seaward window. Here she placed her mother com¬ 
fortably and curled down beside her and her mother 
drew the skirt of her dress around the slender young 
shoulders in the white lawn gown. 

“ Has it been a very hard time, my Jean ? ” asked 
Mrs. Wolcott stroking Jean’s hair. 

“ Yes, no, I don’t know,” said Jean. “It was hard, 
of course. I made such blunders and got so tired at 
first. And lately there have been bothers—I’ll tell you 
to-morrow! But I liked to feel useful and I liked— 
myself! I’ve been feeling myself grow taller and 
wider and deeper; it’s a nice feeling ! ” 

“ You’ve been my comfort, my help, my reliance; 
you’ve let me get well, Jean,” said her mother. And 
in that moment Jean had her reward. 


316 


HEE DAUGHTEE JEAN 


When, a few moments later, Mrs. Wolcott bade Jean 
good-night, she murmured in the girl’s ear: “ The 
dearest girl in all this world is my daughter Jean ! ” 
And Jean fell asleep with a grateful psalm of com¬ 
plete content chanting in her heart. 


CHAPTER XX 
jean’s freighted ships 

E ARLY the next morning Hester Balfour, who had 
heard the great news, came up to meet and lose 
her heart to Mrs. Wolcott, the two things being one 
and simultaneous. Hester Balfour had missed her own 
mother too deeply not to respond to the motherliness 
of Jean’s, while Mrs. Wolcott’s heart went out to Miss 
Balfour quite as though she weren’t a celebrity, but 
merely a lovable girl. 

“ I had a letter to-day, Jean,” said Miss Balfour. “ It 
came after a telegram; the telegram held the news. 
Mr. Carew wrote that he sent his warm greetings to all 
the Wolcott household, but, to his hostess, he says, he 
sends special greeting and begs her to hold him in her 
memory till he comes to Tidewater again—next Satur¬ 
day.” 

“ So long ! ” laughed Jean. “ Impossible ! ” 

“ Try ! ” begged Hester Balfour. “ Ah, but the tele¬ 
gram ! That’s the main thing, from your point of 
view—I liked the letter better! Mr. Stewart is willing 
to relinquish his plan to build at Tidewater, so now Mr. 
317 


318 


HEE DAUGHTEE JEAN 


Carew and I are going to lay our plan before ‘you 
alls,’ as they say down South. It is such a delightful 
plan! ” 

“Can’t you lay it before mother and me now?” 
hinted Jean. “ Saturday is on the other side of Friday, 
still. I’d like to know about it sooner.” 

Miss Balfour shook her head decidedly. “ I won’t 
skim off a drop of cream till Mr. Carew is here with 
his ladle, too. Saturday is only ‘ on the other side of ’ 
to-morrow, and I want you to get up tremendous curi¬ 
osity as to what my mystery is about.” 

“ It doesn’t seem hard to guess as much as that, Miss 
Balfour,” said Mrs. Wolcott. “The clew seems to be 
Mr. Stewart’s giving up buying here, and there¬ 
fore -” 

“No fair!” cried Miss Balfour, covering her ears. 
“ Don’t put two and two together; let them lie around 
separate till Mr. Carew comes! ” 

So Mr. Carew came, on Saturday, and the time be¬ 
tween passed swiftly, for there was so much for Mrs. 
Wolcott to hear before she could be allowed to describe 
her life in the sanitorium, which she had to do in 
detail. 

Miss Balfour and Mr. Carew were invited to tea in 
the old Wolcott house that night and came down the 
cliff together at the appointed hour, so happy that they 


JEAN’S FREIGHTED SHIPS 


319 


did not care who saw their bliss, which overflowed upon 
all around them. The Wolcotts were so happy them¬ 
selves that they did not need sunshine from outside 
their home, but this pair came to increase it till the very 
walls of the fine old house seemed radiant. 

After tea they all gathered, as was their custom, on 
the porch toward the sea. Jean delayed to give Win¬ 
nie a helping hand with the many tea things, good, 
faithful Winnie who solemnly rejoiced with her em¬ 
ployers in the return of the mistress of the house. She 
had paid the tribute of a sort of adoration to her from 
the moment Mrs. Wolcott had first greeted her with 
her gentle voice and luminous smile. The square little 
hand-maid—square in body and square in all her deal¬ 
ings—made many excuses during the day to steal a few 
moments in the room where Mrs. Wolcott happened to 
be. She rarely left it without upsetting that lady’s 
gravity by her funny involved speeches. Now Winnie 
protested against Jean’s absenting herself from her 
guests. 

“ Which is nowise necessary, contraiwise,” she said, 
precisely like Tweedledum and Tweedledee. “ It is my 
duty and my desire to do all this work to-night, Miss 
Jean, for which there is time as I have no other hope 
beyond except to bed, and for that at any time is 
enough time, since I am lucky enough to have my room 


320 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


to myself and waken nobody whenever I come up by 
dropping shoes or the like. And had I ought else, what 
would it matter, since to serve you is my honor and my 
place and the greatest pleasure. For never have I 
known other ladies of any age or clime, England or in 
the States, nor yet in India, I make bold to declare, for 
there I have seen pictures in missionary reports of small 
children fed to crocodiles in the Gang River because 
they know not what they do, not having the light of 
Christianity shed upon them like that lighthouse which 
guides marringers home out yonder, never have I known 
two ladies which I could love and die for with greater 
enjoyment than for your angel mother and you, Miss 
Jean. So wiping my own dishes is far off from dying 
a martyr joyous at a steak, which always seemed to me 
a curious thing to bind one to, as the bone is not suf¬ 
ficient, but likely steaks in the hands of heathen em- 
pyroars is not like those where the English tongue is 
spoken. So return to your guests, Miss Jean, my well- 
beloved young lady, and leave the dishes to Winifred 
Thomas, which you may well do, since so much as a 
chip is my care to avoid and to my mind chips is more 
disfiguring to a plate than an open break, though to be 
sure it leaves the middle still able to cover milk in the 
cellar, or what not. Go, dear Miss Jean; I would 
rather not have you linger.” 


JEAN’S FREIGHTED SHIPS 


321 


Jean ran away laughing and came out on the porch 
among the others, still laughing, perching herself on 
the left arm of her mother’s chair, the right one being 
already secured by Dorcas. 

“ I was waiting for my hostess of the first visit,” said 
Mr. Carew. “ The girl that held this fine old house for 
her family must listen to my plan and have a vote on 
the decision to be made.” 

“Thank you,” said Jean. “I am glad that you 
waited for me: I don’t want to miss a word—we’ve 
been eaten up with curiosity.” 

“ It is not a long story,” Mr. Carew began. “ Miss 
Balfour has friends—writers and painters—who are 
anxious to start a small colony on the Massachusetts 
coast. The idea has been discussed for some time: this 
summer Miss Balfour came here with the object of see¬ 
ing whether Tidewater might prove to be the place for 
this colony, and whether, if it were, there was land to 
be had along the shore for their purpose. She had been 
trying four years ago to interest me in the idea, to the 
extent of helping it to get properly financed—not to 
join it, I regret to say! She hoped that I might be 
useful, because of my connection with Stewart, Reed & 
Company, but she had no idea—then!—of my being 
also ornamental if I were connected with her! The 
best of women are cruel: Miss Balfour treated me with 


I 


322 HER DAUGHTER JEAN 

contumely, yet she did not scruple to try to make use 
of me! ” 

“ Oh, Alan, these nice people don’t want to hear your 
moan over past agonies! ” cried Miss Balfour. 

“Well, then, to resume the cheerfuller theme,” said 
Mr. Carew. “Miss Balfour was wondering whether 
any part of the old Wolcott place could be bought for 
the colony. There are ten people so far—married and 
not—who want to join the colony. There is Stanley 
Howard Leigh, the novelist; David Aldemar, the poet; 
Wilbur Hart, the portrait painter; Alixe Gulden Deane, 
the flower painter; Tom Bourse and his wife, who col¬ 
laborate on those clever parlor plays and historical 
romances—so called because they romance about his¬ 
tory till she is so mortified she disappears altogether! 
There is Miss Balfour herself and four others who are 
climbing up into the glare of fame and are the pleas¬ 
antest sort for neighbors, good fellows, every one of 
them, women as well as men. The idea is that ten houses 
are to be built for the ten double and single colonists, a 
house for the unmarried ones just as for the married 
ones—none of the houses to cost more than two thou¬ 
sand dollars, but each to be as pretty and individual as 
possible within that limit.” 

Jean had been listening with parting lips and bright¬ 
ening eyes. “ And are you going to get all these de- 


JEAN’S FREIGHTED SHIPS 


323 


lightful people to come to Tidewater ? ” she cried, as 
Mr. Carew paused. 

“That depends on two people,” said Mr. Carew. 
“ If Mr. Stewart had set his heart on starting a Land 
Improvement Company down here I should have felt 
that I couldn’t act contrary to his desires. But Mr. 
Stewart has yielded his future interest in this place to 
me, so I can buy here without scruple—if I can buy! 
Now the question is: Will the Wolcotts care to sell 
any part of their land ? ” 

“ Should you want much land ? ” asked Mr. Wolcott. 

“Ten acres, we thought,” said Mr. Carew. “Our 
idea is to allow a half acre to a house. That is enough 
for a garden and a lawn with a chair and an easel or a 
table on it, so that the Colony Geniuses could work 
out-of-doors. Ten acres would do this and leave a few 
extra lots for recruits to the colony. Does the plan 
strike you favorably, Mr. Wolcott ? ” 

“Decidedly,” said Mr. Wolcott. “I have been 
wishing that I could reduce my land to about four 
acres, but I dreaded risking neighbors who would be 
the ordinary type of gay summer cottagers. I think 
we can arrange it, Mr. Carew, if you decide on Tide¬ 
water as the site of your colony.” 

“Mrs. Wolcott?” suggested Mr. Carew. 

“ It promises all sorts of delights. And—it would be 


324 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


in every way good for us,” said Mrs. Wolcott, not ex¬ 
plaining what a twofold good it would be in reducing 
taxation and increasing revenues. “ It would be the 
best thing that could happen for Jean.” 

Jean had been nervously twisting her fingers, her 
cheeks aflame as she saw a vision of poets and novelists 
and painters at her gates, through whom, if talent were 
really hers, the inspiration and guidance for her own 
longed-for career would inevitably come. She saw, 
above all, Miss Balfour, married to Mr. Carew, and 
close to her each summer. 

“ Oh,” she burst forth in irrepressible rapture as Mr. 
Carew turned to her with a smile of invitation for her 
verdict. “ It would be too good to be true! Just 
what I told you that I wanted that day when you took 
me to lunch in Boston ! My home still in Tidewater, 
but surrounded with charming people! Oh, Mr. 
Carew, can you bring it about ? ” 

“ It is brought about now, if your father and mother 
will sell to us,” laughed Mr. Carew. 

“We will not refuse anything so much to our ad¬ 
vantage,” said Mrs. Wolcott. 

Mr. Wolcott stirred uneasily. “When would the 
sale be effected ? ” he asked. “ You see I counted on 
getting the first aeronaut who used my rudder to make 
his ascent from Wolcott land.” 


JEAN’S FREIGHTED SHIPS 


325 


“Will it be ready soon, Mr. Wolcott?” asked Mr. 
Carew, determining that this ambition should be grati¬ 
fied, if possible. 

“ I can’t tell positively, I really can’t say precisely,” 
said Mr. Wolcott. “But I think it would be safe to 
count on its completion within two years; I think I 
may safely say that the rudder will be ready to exhibit 
by that time.” 

“We shall have four acres left, Bentley: that will 
be enough to make the ascent from,” said Mrs. Wolcott 
gently. “Perhaps, as Jean will be twenty in two 
years, and all these clever people will make such a 
great difference in her life, we would do well to help 
the colony’s beginning as soon as may be.” 

“I wonder what else is going to happen that is 
nice!” cried Jean. “It seems as though the whole 
sky was shining with Wolcott rainbows, everything is 
so full of promise for us.” 

Roger came, whistling, in sight at that moment and 
Miss Balfour looked with a smile at Jean. 

“ Did you mean you saw a beau of promise, dearie ? ” 
she whispered. 

“ What do you think we’re going to do, all ye Wol¬ 
cotts and Wolcottettes ? ” called Roger as he swung 
around the corner. “ My mother and Mr. Wolcott’s 
stepmother, and Helen’s mother, with Helen, are all 


326 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


sitting on a pile of wraps and things down on the sand. 
And all of you here present are going to get a pile of 
wraps and things and we’re going to embark. The 
Maid of Orleans is too small for us, and the Nixie is 
smaller yet—don’t listen, Rod !—so I’ve got the noble 
schooner, Molly Burke of Portland, now in our port, 
Captain Gill, to take us voyaging. It’s to celebrate 
Mrs. Wolcott’s return and the engagement of Miss 
Balfour and Mr. Carew, and—all the big chunks of 
happiness we’ve been having broken off and handed 
out to us so liberally for the past few days. 4 We won’t 
come home till morning,’ we set out not to! The moon 
is in her last and smallest hours, rises about half-past 
eleven, but she lights up all right when she gets 
around. We’re going to have a moonlight chowder— 
or else a fish chowder, if you feel like anything more 
solid—on board at midnight, and we’re coming back 
when the little blue jays and catbirds are screaming 
their matins.” 

“ Roger, of all mad plans ! ” cried Mrs. Wolcott. 

“ But a settled plan, dear lady,” said Roger with a 
profound bow. 

Dorcas was careering around like a top, her boasted 
lack of mischief not apparent. “ I’m going! I’m 
going! I’m going, too ! To stay up all night and sail 
and sail! ” she shrieked. 


JEAN’S FREIGHTED SHIPS 


327 


“ Sounds like Captain Kidd, instead of the Wolcott 
kid,” suggested Rod. “ It won’t hurt her, mother, for 
once.” 

“ What fun it will be ! ” cried Miss Balfour, really de¬ 
lighted. 

“You don’t say anything, Jean: don’t you like the 
idea ? ” asked Roger. 

“ I love it! ” cried Jean, leaving no doubt of her sin¬ 
cerity. “ But I was wondering—Roger, w ould nice, com¬ 
pact Winnie be in the way ? She has no girl friends 
here and she would enjoy it so, if only to adore mother 
in the moonlight! She will not put herself forward.” 

“Bless you, Jeannie, I don’t care whether she is for¬ 
ward or astern! ” said Roger heartily. “ Of course the 
good little bunch may come! What a nice girl you are, 
Jean dear, to think of your handmaid and reward her 
for her devotion.” 

“ That isn’t nice. Winnie is young, though it doesn’t 
show often, and I’d hate to be away from my own peo¬ 
ple, among strangers as she is,” said Jean, hurrying 
away from the warmth in Roger’s eyes, with a blush 
and a perturbation that was not unpleasant. 

Mrs. Wolcott arose to follow every one else into the 
house; there had been a general stampede to prepare 
when her family saw that Mrs. Wolcott was not going 
to object to Roger’s exciting project. 


328 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


“Just a minute, Jean’s dear mother,” said Roger 
softly, laying a hand on her arm. “ I want to be fair. 
I’m older than Jean by three years and she is particu¬ 
larly simple, unconscious for seventeen. She is stirring 
in her sleep, though! The day Dorcas and I were in 
danger ”—Roger did not say “ the day I rescued 
Dorcas ”—“ Jean began to suspect she cared forme, not 
in the old way that had been a development of her lit¬ 
tle school days. It is only a sort of dawn in her, but I 
want to be fair. May I go on trying to make her care 
for me the way such a girl as Jean can care for a 
man ? ” 

Mrs. Wolcott halted with her hand on the casement 
of the doorway of the old house. “ Roger, it is hard for 
a mother to realize time! It seems so lately that I went 
to see my friend, Anna Cathcart’s, new little son! I 
wasn’t married then. And about the space of a breath 
ago I took my own baby in my arms and named her 
for my beloved mother ! You are a fine boy, Roger, an 
honorable man. I could ask nothing better for little 
Jean than to love you ; I have hoped she would. But 
—don’t hurry her, Roger! Let her halt on the edge of 
girlhood as long as she can. Try, dear, to hold back 
your desire. Jean will feel it surely enough and grow up 
too soon. Let my little girl be a little girl just as long 
as she can—please, Roger.” 


JEAN’S FREIGHTED SHIPS 


329 


“ I’ll help her keep her girlhood ; I promise,” said 
Roger, kissing Mrs. Wolcott, whom he had loved all 
his life. “ As long as there’s no danger of any one 
else cutting in, I won’t bother Jean.” 

“ Thank you, Roger. I’m perfectly sure no one else 
will ever take your place to Jean,” said Mrs. Wolcott, 
going on her way. Tears were in her eyes, but she was 
smiling. “ He means every word,” she thought, “ every 
word ! But nobody ever can hold back spring blossom¬ 
ing. My little Jean will be my grown up daughter and 
betrothed before she is much older in years. Bless my 
little poet, my true, loyal, loving little woman-child ! ” 
And Jean’s mother went slowly onward, up-stairs, 
still smiling with her lips yet drying her eyes as she 
mounted. 

“ Now we’re off ! ” shouted Rod ecstatically, as the 
schooner, Molly Burke , began to get her pace and stand 
off toward the lighthouse. Her pace was not a bad 
one ; she had a good deal of speed in her useful frame 
and she was as clean as any yacht. 

Captain Gill was taciturn, but sympathetic; he did 
everything that he could do for his passengers’ com¬ 
fort, but conversed with them solely by the use of 
“ yes ” and “no.” He was much younger than one’s pre¬ 
conception of a sea captain would have made one guess. 
As the night went on, and the chowder appeared and 


330 


HER DAUGHTER JEAN 


disappeared, and the tardy moon arose to make this 
adventurous celebration perfect, the Molly Burke's pas¬ 
sengers discovered, with boundless amusement, that 
Winnie’s flow of remarkable language had a fascination 
for the Molly's captain. He arranged a comfortable 
seat for the chubby Welsh maiden and listened to her 
eloquence with a wondering admiration that made Mr. 
Carew prophesy that “Portland” would be painted 
out on the Molly Burke's stern and “ Tidewater ” be 
substituted for it. 

Dorcas, to her intense disgust, found herself growing 
sleepy as they sailed toward home at two o’clock in the 
morning. She had so resolutely determined to keep 
awake all night for the first time in her short life ! 
But the shortness of that life interfered with her carry¬ 
ing out her resolution. Little Dorcas fought hard, but 
could not hold her eyes open. She fell sound asleep 
after several partial droppings-off and Steve pillowed 
her head upon his knees for the rest of that voyage. 

The homeward sail was too beautiful, too full of 
mystery in those small hours to allow much talk. Not 
even singing occurred to any one. Deep and far the 
stars shone over the mysterious ocean, till the moon¬ 
light dimmed them. All save Yenus, shining in the 
east with rivaling glory, till the first changing, 
tremulous color of dawn showed around her. 


JEAN’S FREIGHTED SHIPS 


331 


It was a wonderful sail, a marvelous night. Roger 
had been inspired to give his friends this rare pleasure, 
they all agreed. 

Jean half lay, half sat with her head close to her 
mother’s, her mother’s hand in hers. She could not 
bear yet to be where she could not touch this dear 
mother, to assure herself that she had her still and was 
to keep her. 

“ Sleepy, little Jean ? ” asked Mrs. Wolcott, speaking 
softly into the delicate ear that was hidden in her neck. 

“ No,” said Jean, shaking her head till her ruffled hair 
tickled her mother’s lips. “ Thinking. And being 
happy, deep down, perfectly happy.” 

“ Thinking of how you are to write beautiful stories 
and poems and of how dear to me is my daughter 
Jean ? ” asked Mrs. Wolcott. 

Jean nestled closer by way of marking her apprecia¬ 
tion of her mother’s words. “That, too,” she said. 
“ I’m going to write ; I know it, but somehow I don’t 
think of it first of all, as I used to.” 

“Then what is first?” Mrs. Wolcott whispered. 
“ What were your long, deep thoughts about, Jean 
dear?” 

“ About how blessed I am, of what a kind, kind year 
this has been to me! Of all my freighted ships, 
freighted with future years and joys and sorrows, sail- 


NOV 29 1913 


332 HEE DAUGHTEE JEAN 

ing toward me from beyond the seas we know,” said 
Jean, the poet. 

Her mother tightened her hold upon the girl’s hand. 
Jean’s eyes met Koger’s as he smiled at her from his 
distant place. 

Jean smiled back at him trustfully, but she turned to 
her mother with a childish movement and snuggled her 
head deeper into her shoulder. 

“ All my beautiful, gloriously freighted ships,” she 
repeated. “ But, oh, mother darling, nothing can ever 
be better than to be your daughter Jean! ” 




By Amy E. Blanchard 
War of the Revolution Series 


The books comprising this series have become well known among the 
girls and are alike chosen by readers themselves, by parents and by teachers 
on account of their value from the historical standpoint, their purity of style 
and their interest in general. 

A Girl of ’76 

ABOUT COLONIAL BOSTON. 331pp. 

It is one of the best stories of old Boston and its vicinity which 
has ever been written. Its value as real history and as an incen¬ 
tive to further study can hardly be overestimated. 

A Revolutionary Maid 

A STORY OF THE MIDDLE PERIOD IN THE 
WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 3x2 pp. 

No better material could be found for a story than the New 
Jersey campaign, the Battle of Germantown, and the winter 
at Valley Forge. Miss Blanchard has made the most of a 
large opportunity and produced a happy companion volume 
to “A Girl of 76.” 

A Daughter of Freedom 

A STORY OF THE LATTER PERIOD OF THE 
WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE. 312 pp. 

In this story the South supplies the scenery, and good use 
is made of the familiar fact that a family often was divided 
in its allegiance. It is romantic but not sensational, well- 
written and rich in entertainment. 

War of 1812 Series 

This period is divided into two historical volumes for girls, the one upon 
the early portion describing the causes, etc., of the war, the latter showing 
the strife along the Northern border. 

A Heroine of 1812 

A MARYLAND ROMANCE. 335 pp. 

This Maryland romance is of the author’s best; strong in 
historical accuracy and intimate knowledge of the locality. 
Its characters are of marked individuality, and there are no 
dull or weak spots in the story. 

A Loyal Lass. 

A STORY OF THE NIAGARA CAMPAIGN OF 
1814. 319 pp. 

This volume shows the intense feeling that existed all along 
the border line between the United States and Canada, and as 
was the case in our Civil War even divided families fought on 
opposite sides during this contest. It is a sweet and wholesome 
romance. 

E ACH VOLUME FULLY ILLUSTRATED. Price, #1.50 
W. A. WILDE COMPANY, - - Boston and Chicago 






BOOKS BY 


Ellen Douglas Deland 


Malvern; A Neighborhood Story 

341 pp. 121x10. Cloth. 

“Malvern” is a story of fine workmanship, sterling 
sentiments, and more than ordinary caliber. The 
author is one of the best writers for young people, 
and this is certainly one of her best stories.— The In¬ 
terior. 

A Successful Venture 

340 pp. 121T10. Cloth. 

This book, primarily for girls, is lively and full of 
interest, pure in its tone and free from sensation, and 
full of many helpful suggestions. It is a story of 
a family of girls who found it necessary to make their 
own way in the world. This they did with success. 
—Boston Transcript. 

Katrina 

340 pp. i2tno. Cloth. 

“Katrina” is a story which all girl readers would 
pronounce a capital good one. The heroine’s desire 
to look beyond the horizon of her little village when 
opportunity presents itself takes her to New York, 
where she finds new pleasures and experiences. The 
book is certainly a most wholesome one. — The Book¬ 
seller, New York. 

Three Girls of Hazelmere. A Story 

360 pp. i2mo. Cloth. 

To take a trip abroad with Miss Deland’s “Three 
Girls of Hazelmere” is a treat for any reader, for the 
author’s style is natural, yet remarkably effective, 
and the interest follows closely to the end of the book. 
— Bookseller. 

The Friendship of Anne 

342 pp. Cloth. i2mo. 

This is a book which will appeal to girls and interest 
them throughout. It is founded on boarding-school 
life and is full of activity and enthusiasm.— Herald 
and Presbyter. 

Each Volume Fully Illustrated. Price $1.50 Each. 










FAMOUS STORIES FOR GIRLS 

•By Charlotte M. Vaile 


The Orcutt Girls 

OR, ONE TERM AT THE ACADEMY. 316 pp. 

Sue Orcutt 

A SEQUEL TO “THE ORCUTT GIRLS.” 335 pp. 

These companion volumes are among the most 
popular books for girls which have ever been written 
concerning school life. In these books Mrs. Vaile 
depicts that old academic life which used to be so 
great a feature in the life of New England. Mrs. 
Vaile shows her intimat knowledge of the subject, 
and both books are full of incentive and inspiration. 

Wheat and Huckleberries 

OR, DR. NORTHMORE’S DAUGHTERS. 336 pp. 

Another story for girls with the true ring of genuine¬ 
ness, and as the two girls around whom the story cen¬ 
ters were born and brought up in the rich farm regions 
of the Middle West, and then spent their summers in 
the New England home of their grandfather, the author 
has been able to weave into her narrative the various 
peculiarities of both sections. 

Each volume is fully illustrated. Price, $1.50 


The M. M. C. 

A STORY OF THE GREAT ROCKIES. 232 pp. 

The experience of a New England girl in the Colorado 
mining camp. It shows the pluck of the little school 
teacher in holding for her friend a promising mining 
claim which he had secured after years of misfortune 
in other ventures. 

Fully illustrated. Price, $1.00 












































LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



























































































































































































































































































































































































































